Redirect Knowledge Articles in servicenow to Google Drive Links in ServiceNow

[Rohit28]

We have a requirement wherein our company uses Google Drive for maintaining up-to-date information. Our stakeholders prefer not to come to ServiceNow to update knowledge articles directly. Instead, they would like it so that when someone clicks on a Knowledge Article, it should automatically redirect the user to the relevant Google Drive link associated with that article.

Has anyone implemented this kind of a feature (scalable)?

[Mark Manders]

I assume this is only for a part of the articles, otherwise it wouldn't make sense to use Knowledge in ServiceNow at all. And then I would just put the link to the document in the article body.

The question is, who is going to maintain this? If the stakeholders aren't updating the articles, then who is? No matter what kind of solution you think of, you will need to link a knowledge article to the drive document. If the document is replaced, the link needs to be updated. If the document is removed, the article needs to be retired. 

Whose responsibility is it to keep this in sync? 

[Rohit28]

Hi Mark,

Thank you for your insights. Your understanding in correct, this is only for a part of articles used by one specific function. I suggested for placing the link in the article body, but it was a hesitation as it would require 2 clicks.

However, they agree that if the document is replaced/retired, they are responsible for marking the article as retired in ServiceNow. 

From a technical standpoint, I do think that building/maintaining a custom solution will be challenging, but if we think for a customer experience perspective the ask is a valid one.

The only out of the box solution, I can think of is marking the knowledge articles as Quick links on the Employee center. Do you have any other solution in mind?

[Mark Manders]

They won't use ServiceNow in the way it is supposed to be used, so don't make it your problem. If you add it as quick links, your users will still have a weird experience. They are looking for knowledge and don't find it in the normal place, but need to use quick links. And you are the one that needs to update them if anything changes.
If they don't want to put the content in ServiceNow (where they can also maintain it, just like on the drive), then the users will have to click. 

If it really is for one specific function, why not make one article with all links?