Changes to OOTB behavior for KBs and Versioning

[Quan Truong]

I'm a manager of an Epic specific KB library. We've been using KBs to house our tip sheets for a couple years now. We've run into the issues outlined below. We requested changes but our ServiceNow team is reluctant to move away from the OOTB functionality. Has anyone else run into these types of issues? If so, how did you solve them?

Edit: 

Here's a bit more context on our setup.

We already have a Epic specific KB Library. The library is set up so that all ServiceNow users can read any articles. But only members of the Epic team can add or edit articles. When I say "all users" in the "Requested Fix" column, I meant all users on the Epic team. Not all ServiceNow users.

The first request to expand retiring KBs could be just to expand to the members of the owning team. We figured just expand it out to the entire Epic team because we're not concerned with analysts inappropriately retiring articles.

The reason for wanting to expand the edit ability to all editing users in the library is because we have several articles that span different Epic teams. We have articles for upgrades that are user specific but span different pieces of functionality with different owning teams. So our process right now is for users of the "owning" team to update the article with information sent to them from the other contributing teams. This creates an unnecessary middle man who is updating the article with information they aren't the expert on.

The last issue is another variation of the above where we can have multiple members of the same team working on a KB article for our users. 1 member may be the expert on one part of the article while another member is the expert on another. The workflow now is for member #1 to checkout, edit, request approval for publishing, then get the article published. Our approval workflow is set up so that a member of the Epic team who isn't the author must approve the changes. Then member #2 has to do the same. It would be much better if we could have a "check-in" function which would save the changes but then allow others to make edits. As is, the process takes longer and it's possible for users to view half-edited KAs.

[Greg Yuh]

Quan,

Not sure what version you are on, however, there is a "Ownership Groups" assignment for KB articles which will resolve the issue for you.  Instead of a single person, you can assign the KB article to a group, like your Epic team group so they can maintain the KB article.

You need Knowledge Management Advanced Plugin enabled in your environment.

[MelissaD]

You may want to check in to Ownership Groups in OOB Knowledge V3. It allows for all members of the group access to the knowledge articles owned by them. I believe this allows for all members of the group to edit, retire, and approve articles they own.