how to differentiate "agent" articles versus customer-facing articles in knowledge management

[JasonPage]

The major issue here is we are trying to build out a new knowledge structure and I've created KBs for each of our main IT towers, to handle both agent and "customer" (non-IT folks) articles. Having one customer facing KB creates a big headache of who owns this, and then the approval group will be large. Our platform team as recommended us NOT use a category-level approval path due to customizations and increasing technical debt to maintain the workflows, new fields needed etc. So we're going with one approval group per Knowledge base and the approvers will just have to receive all approval notifications and look to the category to understand if they need to approve it, or someone else in the group. So we have a slight pivot in the management of articles, but it is how we're moving forward. With this in mind, I need help on how we separate agent vs. customer articles? By role? Specifically with AI in mind - how can we setup our knowledge bases to ensure customers get answers they need and agents/IT people get what they are looking for.

[vaishali231]

hey @JasonPage 

You can separate agent vs. customer knowledge articles without introducing customization or technical debt by using User Criteria + lightweight metadata, instead of splitting heavily by KBs or category-level approvals.
Approach
Use User Criteria for Access Control (OOB)
Create:
Agent User Criteria - roles like itil
Customer User Criteria - external/internal non-IT users
Apply on:
Knowledge Base (preferred)
Or Article level (if needed)
Add an “Audience” Field (Optional but Recommended for AI)
Field: Audience
Values:
Agent
Customer
Both
Helps with:
AI Search relevance
Filtering
Better governance
Configure AI Search / Search Contexts
Customer portal - only customer-visible content
Agent workspace - both agent + customer content
Boost results based on:
Role
Audience
KB source
Keep Your Current Approval Model
KB-level approval group is fine
Improve clarity via:
Naming convention
Include category + audience in approval notifications

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Regards
Vaishali Singh

[JasonPage]

Vaishali - thank you for your quick response! We'd rather not have to create/manage separate KBs for IT-tech folks and end users, so we'll look to try your persona approach. I'll get back to you to see how it goes!

[vaishali231]

hey @JasonPage 

Hope you are doing well.

Did my previous reply answer your question?

If it was helpful, please mark it as correct ✓ and close the thread . This will help other readers find the solution more easily.

Regards,
Vaishali Singh