Knowledge article as guidance content for service catalog items

[Dave Thackeray]

Guidance content can be quite lengthy in advising colleagues how to complete quite extensive forms in the Service Catalog.

We're also sticklers for accuracy and consistency and so I'm really keen that we use workflow features available in the Knowledge Management system.

My vision is that we create and consistently format guidance as a KB article in Knowledge Management, and that passes through an approvals and review process before it's published to the Service Catalog.

This means we can:

• Format guidance content
• Make sure it's consistent by it passing through a workflow
• Use it elsewhere (we favour the Create Once, Publish Everywhere model of content development)

Is this possible? Could we publish in Knowledge Management and then show that content, once approved, inside a Service Catalog item?

Or is there another way to ensure this granular level of governance and consistency?

[Logan Poynter]

Hello Dave,

This and this should be what you're looking for. 

Please mark my answer as correct/helpful if it has helped you.

Thanks,
Logan

[Dave Thackeray]

Thanks, Logan.

This is a good approach.

I was considering a different one.

Our Service Catalog goes through quite a few changes.

I want our service owners to manage the guidance content for each catalog item. But we need to approve their content changes before being deployed.

That's why I thought there might be a way of leveraging the Knowledge Management's workflow capabilities for content displayed in the catalog.

[Logan Poynter]

Hello Dave,

Ok, I think you just clarified what I misunderstood. What you're actually saying is you want to have a review procedure like Knowledge Approval (draft, review, published) for your service catalog maintenance? 

Please mark my answer as correct/helpful if it has helped you.

Thanks,
Logan

[Dave Thackeray]

Yes - that's exactly it!

Or if we couldn't have a review procedure for service catalog content, have a content container on a service catalog page template which could either display content created only for that service catalog item, or pull in content from a corresponding knowledgebase article.

Our service catalog allows users to request software, hardware, OR services. So while our software/hardware does not have much in the way of guidance content (specifications/features/what's included/what's NOT included), our services often have a lot of accompanying detail.

Thanks, Logan!