Configuring Knowledge Management - Add-in for Microsoft Word

[Ranganayaki]

Hi there,

Accessing of Knowledge Management module in Microsoft Word is introduced in Paris release.
One can access Knowledge Management of ServiceNow from Word by deploying the Knowledge Management - Add-in for Microsoft Word.

Using this add-in, we can Create, Edit and Publish the articles.
*** Once article is Published, Workflow will be under Review if the article has valid approvals.The access is dependent on the roles assigned to the user.

Prerequisites:  Need an admin role to deploy the Manifest file in Office365.

Note:
The KM add-in for MS Word is accessible only in MS Office online. We cannot access this add-in on desktop MS Word app.

Let us look on step-by-step process to access KM on MS Word.

Step 1: Activate the plugin in ServiceNow
Activate the plugin for Knowledge Management - Add-in for Microsoft Word in ServiceNow.
System Applications > All Available Applications > All.

Step 2: Download Manifest file.
In the Filter navigator,
ServiceNow Add-Ins for Office > Office Add-In-Manifests>Click on Knowledge Management>Download Manifest.

Step 3: Deploy the Knowledge Management - Add-in for Microsoft Word.
Log in to Office 365 in any browser and click the Admin link to access the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.
App Launcher > Click on Admin > Settings > Services & Add-ins > Click on Deploy Add-In > Click Next >Click on Upload file > Upload downloaded Manifest.xml  file> Click Next > You can choose to deploy to all Office 365 users, specific users of groups that you have already defined, or just to yourself.

Step 4: Add the add-in to MS Word.
Click on MS Word > Blank Document > Search “Add-Ins” > Select top search > Admin Managed > Select Knowledge Management > Add.

Now you can see the add-in in MS Word.

Step 5: Configuration at ServiceNow instance.
Property sn_km_Word.glide.knowman.Word.xframe is used to specify the parent domains. For example, to enter the Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft OneDrive domains: https://sitename.sharepoint.com,https://sitename-my.sharepoint.com,https://word-edit.officeapps.live.com
Kindly check the below mentioned link for more details on Manifest File validation.
https://support.servicenow.com/kb?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB0860916

Step 6: Using Knowledge Management add-in for MS Word.
***If you have SSO set up this will automatically redirect you to ServiceNow Knowledge Management.

Click on Login to ServiceNow > Opens new Window with ServiceNow login > Enter Credentials and Login

There you are!!!!You configured the ServiceNow Knowledge Management - Add-in for Microsoft Word successfully.

With this add-in you can draft the KB article both in online MS Word as well as on ServiceNow native app.To edit the article at native app, we can use the “Unlink from Word” under Related Links.

 

Note: I configured using my PDI(Quebec version) with my Office 365 business account.

 Thank you,

Ranganayaki.

[Robby Friedrich]

Hi Ranganayaki.

Thanks for the great post. It is the only post where it is shown which the connection looks like at all 🙂

I have configured this all the way here with our Paris instance and have the following challenge:

1.When I am in the Word app and want to create an article, I have to put the URL of the Word online document before I can save. Here I am unsure what the URL needs to look like that I need to put there. My tests on this have unfortunately been negative.

2. If I want to open a KB article, which I created before via Word App and the Add-Inn, then the article is either loaded via a web browser on my computer or opened in MS Teams. Depending on what URL I have assigned under 1.

Can you maybe post me a URL so I can compare mine with it?

Thanks a lot
Robby

[Santosh Kumar9]

Hi Ranganayaki,

I have installed this plugin in my instance, I have created an article in word and published it. While I open same article in ServiceNow instance, font of article is different.

Can you please let me know what I am missing which causes this error?

Your answer will be appreciated.

Best Regards,

Santosh 

[Maloy Banerjee]

Hi @Robby Friedrichs ,

In your comment you have mentioned that the knowledge article opened in MS Teams. Can you please guide me, how can I access/open a knowledge article from MS teams?

Regards,

Maloy Banerjee

[Robby Friedrich]

Hello Maloy,

unfortunately I can not do that. That was an unwanted effect!
The default application for Word documents was wrongly routed to Teams instead of Word.

Cheers
Robby

[Ranganayaki]

Hello @Robby Friedrichs ,

Extreme apologies on my late reply to your query,Kindly let me know if you r still have any query on this

Thanks,

RK

[Rajesh_Singh]

cool information

[Jitendra Kumar]

Impressive and detailed information given, hope to see more articles

[Mukesh24]

We've followed the steps and configured it but just getting a blank white screen in MS Word. Any advise?

[Robby Friedrich]

Hello Mukesh.

Is this a screenshot from the Windows application?

What happens if you try it via Word online at portal.office.com?

For example, I got a slightly more accurate error message only with Firefox browser than with Chrome....

Regards
Robby

[Mukesh24]

Yep it was the desktop application. I saw the notes above on the original post that this only works on MS Word online. So that may be the case.

Another question, has anyone figured how to add/remove fields from this right pane on this KM add-in?

[lana5]

I have the same issue, where I get a blank page.  Did you manage to get it sorted?

[Christian45]

Hey Ranganayaki,

thank you very much for the very detailed description! now i have a semi-working setup, as i have the manifest uploaded, KB articles created and published via word

BUT

all my article bodies remain empty within servicenow. i do not know why this happens.

On the other side, whenever i press the button <Open in Word> the article is opened properly, so it cannot be the link or the permissions, i guess

Could you pls be so kind to give me a hint, why this happens?

merci

br

Christian

[Ranganayaki]

Hello Christian,

Kindly unlink the KB with Word and check .u can see the unlinking under related links of the article

Thanks,

RK

[Shivam32]

Hello Ranganayaki,

I am also getting the same issue. All my article bodies remain empty within servicenow. I tried to unlink the KB with word under related links but still the body is empty.

[jbasa]

Same issue here.  Works great in Online Word.  I can create many articles until I publish them.  The article has no content.  If I unlink it, still nothing, if I go back and edit in word online, looks great!

Nice idea, so far not so great in execution

[Wendy Peterson]

Did anyone ever figure out the issue with Blank Articles on this one?

[Wendy Peterson]

Did you figure out the issue with blank articles? TIA

[Victor Roberto]

I'm having the same problem with the blank articles. I haven't been able to identify the problem yet. Has anyone figured out how to resolve it?

[Cristiano Vilel]

Hey Ranganayaki.

Great article. You did a great job providing detailed instructions on how to properly configure the add-in.

But unfortunately I've got the same issue with blank articles, as reported by @Christian , @Shivam , @Wendy Peterson , and @Victor Roberto . Please see screenshots:

Have you (or anyone else) figured it out?

Please let me know if I can provide further details on the issue.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers.
Cristiano

[vanessaheux]

Hello

I'm trying to use the word addin too but I have the same problems as some of you.

However I don't see how you solved the issue.

My issues are:

In word, I can't create or replace a document in snow KB as the system asks me for a URL and I don't know what to put?

I don't know neither what to put in property sn_km_Word.glide.knowman.Word.xframe in snow

Can you help me on what to put as URL or in the property?

My need to to have a link between word and KB in snow. No need to pusblish in sharepoint or any other support.

Thanks.

Vanessa

[DavidBReynolds]

My company is using this add-in with Tokyo. One of the required fields in ServiceNow is Styles (stylesheets).

When I create a new document in Word, then open SNOW, my content is erased when I select the stylesheet.

How do I configure the add-in so that everyone is required to select a stylesheet before they can write an article?

Above no style sheet selected. Text imports from Word.

After selecting a stylesheet, the content is overwritten.

Using stylesheets is critical to maintain a consistent look and feel so not using a style sheet or setting it to "None" is not acceptable.

Also, how much customization can be made to the Word Add-in? Can we configure various fields? For example, I see that someone else has a language field which our out of the box version lacks.

Thank-you everyone for your comments and suggestions.

[Chris Yang]

@DavidBReynolds You should be able to configure it on the view.

Check out this support KB:

https://support.servicenow.com/kb?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB0957550

[Joachim V_]

@DavidBReynolds 

I hope you found a solution for your challenge.

Despite you were asking a question, your post was already very helpful for me as you mentioned the option to use (multiple) styles to make knowledge article look consistent. We currently face the challenge that font information is not taken over from Word to ServiceNow. An ideal situation would be, not to use the Word styling at all but a predefined CSS styling. You make me hope that this is possible.

Can you point to some resources that show what we need to switch on to uses the styles shown in your screen and maybe where to locate the CSS stylesheets. Help is much appreciated. Thnaks in advance

Best regards
Joachim

[DavidBReynolds]

Resolving Word Add-in Style Sheet issues

We resolved our issues with style sheets removing Word content by configuring the Word add-in for ServiceNow to use a Word style sheet. This is the only sheet available to people using the add-in.

If they want to use other style sheets, they can create knowledge articles directly within ServiceNow.

Using this method means that all document formatting is done in Word. ServiceNow is only used for publishing while writing, editing and updating are done in the Word document itself. Formatting options within ServiceNow are grayed out, indicating they are not useable.

People can edit the document in ServiceNow but doing so breaks the link to the Word document.

Access is limited while we resolve other issues. One of them is creating a document repository within ServiceNow for the Word documents. We plan to automate access to this feature allowing anyone with ITIL permissions who can currently create knowledge articles to use this feature.

[Joachim V_]

Hey Plugin users, 
I managed (unfortunately) to break a Word-article connection by deleting the article (Draft) in ServiceNow. Now I have a Word document (.DOCX) that still has a relation to the now deleted article saved somewhere in the file. I would like to use the Word document again as it is my template to create other Word articles from. But I cannot, the plugin always shows and rather empty sidebar (despite I am connected):

I tried already (without success):
- Save as and then open

- Copy locally via Windows explorer and then open and save back to SharePoint Online

Any idea how I can remove the dead connection?

Thanks, Joachim