Knowledge V3 and Service Portal

[Jerry20]

We are getting ready to migrate to Knowledge V3 and use Service Portal.   I understand that in ServiceNow (not the service portal environment), Knowledge can be configured so that multiple knowledge bases can be created with different user criteria specifications.   When doing a knowledge search from the Service Portal, does it span the multiple knowledge bases and apply the user criteria so that the user in Service Portal only see's what they are suppose to see?

[Goran WitchDoc]

Hi,

If I don't remember wrong, for now a Service Portal only points to 1 service catalog and 1 knowledge base. But at K16 they were talking about adding multi of both in the future. But that is words from a teacher and nothing more right now,.

As you can see in the portal settings:

And yea, my circles isnt so good looking 😃

//Göran

[nathanfirth · Accepted solution]

That's correct... only one Knowledge Base and Service Catalog per portal. Of course you can always create your own widgets to circumvent that if needed, but I have done several deployments already and have found this to be a big advantage. You can always use multiple portal records to toggle between the knowledge bases you would like to view. Also, it does check permissions on the articles so users will only see what they have permission to see.

[Jerry20]

Did you mean to say a big disadvantage?,but I have done several deployments already and have found this to be a big advantage.  

As far as the multiple portal records to toggle between knowledge bases:   I have two different types of users, each cannot see the other articles.   It sounds like I would make two different knowledge bases and two portals.   On each portal I would use the search group option to filter the articles.   If this is correct, on the Service Portal page itself, how do I configure when the user clicks on Knowledge they are directed to the correct portal?

[nathanfirth]

I actually like the one portal with one knowledge base and service catalog approach. At first I hated it because I thought we could simply store that information in that instance record. However there are quite a few widgets that make up the knowledge base so storing that on a single field makes it very easy to setup and only have to maintain a single page, single set of widgets, across all your portals.

What if you had an entry portal that simply asks the user "which department are you looking for" with buttons for IT, HR, Facilities, etc... that then takes you into that departments specific portal with it's own KB and SC... you could use the same theme, look and feel, same logo, etc... or change it up slightly as needed for each department. Or you could even add tabs to the top header that lists out the portals for easy switching.