Prevent Knowledge Template Overwrite

[mohdadil397]

We use Knowledge Templates in Knowledge Management to standardize authoring. However, when an author applies a template mid‑draft from the template bar/related list on the Knowledge form, the platform overwrites the current article content, including:

• Short description
• Main body/content field

This leads to unintended data loss if the author clicks a template by mistake. Authors currently copy content externally to preserve it before trying a template, which is inefficient and error‑prone.

Measured impact: ~45 seconds per article to manually preserve/restore content when applying templates.
Risk: Loss of in‑progress authored content; inconsistent knowledge quality due to workarounds.

Goal

Introduce a guardrail when applying a Knowledge Template during article editing so authors can either:

1. Retain & Append template content to existing content (concatenation), or
2. Overwrite existing content with template content

This should be a confirmation pop‑up/modal triggered when clicking a template, before changes are applied.

[Mark Manders]

Add the 'official' templates as templates as well, so they can reapply them. This is how templates work. You click on them and they are applied. Best thing would be to not allow Knowledge form templates, but only utilize the official templates.

[Dr Atul G- LNG]

Hi @mohdadil397 

Technically, it might possible, but practically it’s not a good approach. The template is designed to set values, so it must be applied carefully. If work has already started and the template is applied, it will override all existing values — this is the expected behavior. I doubt there is a way to change this behavior safely.

check:

https://www.servicenow.com/community/csm-forum/i-want-to-set-a-field-by-applying-a-template-but-not-...

@Anil Lande