For knowledge articles, what will happen after the “valid to “date is passed?

[belle]

For knowledge articles, what will happen after the “valid to “date is passed? Will the articles be hidden from search results or if the status be moved to “retired”?

thank you

[TrevorK]

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/orlando-servicenow-platform/page/product/knowledge-management/tas...

The date this knowledge article expires. Articles do not appear in search results after the Valid to date or if the Valid to date is blank.

You can examine the code behind things like the UI pages and Service Portal Widgets, but if I recall the valid_to date is a criteria to exclude the results. Additionally, if I recall, the valid_to date does not trigger the retirement workflow. We have used knowledge for many years so we may be missing this piece if it was added on - but our articles do not retire at this point.

One thing we added to our instance is a scheduled job that sends out an email 30 days before the valid_to date and triggers a renewal workflow. This allows time for the article to be updated and the valid_to date to be extended. Out of the box, at least for us at the time, there was no management of the valid_to date and articles kept expiring. We have been using Knowledge for many years now, so there is a chance something now does this. But our scheduled job is what we have been relying on this whole time.

Another piece of advice is to require a valid_to date and limit how far in the future it can be. Knowledge has to be maintained and having a valid_to date enforces that (combined with using that date to notify people to update their articles).

[Brandon58]

Hey @TrevorK I was asked to look into setting something up just like this for our instance. Would love to see how you currently have this implemented in the platform. If you'd be willing to share I'd greatly appreciate you pointing me in the direction on how to get started with something like this.

[TrevorK]

I am more than happy to help.

Which piece do you want help with? What do you want to achieve? If you want to do it over email / other method let me know!

[Vishakha · Accepted solution]

Hi Belle,

There are a number of Wiki references with regards to this field

1. From the legacy version of Knowledge Management (v2): Legacy:Knowledge Workflow - ServiceNow Wiki

Valid to

Enter the date when this article expires. Only Published articles within the valid date range are visible in the knowledge portal and search. Articles that are not published or whose Valid to date has passed are not visible. This field is available to users with the admin or knowledge_admin role only.

2. For the current version of Knowlege Management (v3): Creating Knowledge - ServiceNow Wiki

Valid to

When this knowledge article expires. Articles do not appear when browsing or searching after the valid to date, or if the valid to date is empty.

You can see how the field is actually being used by reviewing the code. Here's a few examples:

1. UI Page - kb_list - /sys_ui_page.do?sys_id=d24eaed20a0a0b3200e4f70e69f4368e
2. Text Search Group - Knowledge & Catalog (condition) - /ts_group.do?sys_id=2b77ce594bd6c0d901b8fbe25ceff671

Theoretically, you could change the behaviour of the field by updating the code. However, from a document control perspective your Knowledge team(s) would want to take that opportunity to review the "expired" articles, where they can be unpublished, extended, revised or deprecated in favour of another article.

I do like Terri's suggestion of having a Scheduled Job to identify such KB articles and take action on the record. You can take that idea further and generate notifications for the relevant individual(s) or team(s)

Best Regards,

Vishakha