Set up 301 and 404 Redirects For Retired Knowledge Articles

Manal AQUIL · ‎10-26-2022

Hi Community members,

As per below URL, we have new feature in Tokyo for knowledge: Ability to set up 301 and 404 redirects for retired articles.

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/tokyo-servicenow-platform/page/product/knowledge-management/conce...

So far I have explored that in Tokyo, on click of retire button it will pop up a window which will ask us to add a replacement article . But despite adding replacement article, when I try to search for retired article in knowledge portal it doesn't redirect to replacement article.

Kindly, help me navigate how to setup 301 redirection to replacement article when we search for a retired article in portal which is attached to replacement article otherwise it should redirect to 404 record not found.

Regards,
Manal Aquil

Allen Andreas · ‎11-03-2022

Hi,

After reading through the documentation, again, and then testing things within my own Tokyo instance. I can say that the functionality for redirection when accessing a retired article, that has an article specified in the "Replacement Article" field, does work and redirect to the selected article.

When an value is not selected for the "Replacement Article" field and you access that retired article, if you have higher level permissions (like admin), you'll see the retired article, if you don't have higher level permissions, you'll see an error message that you can't access the article.

The above outcomes align to what I read in the documentation. The notes about the 301 and 404 codes do not state that they would be redirected to a 404 page.

So in the end, if a value is selected for the "Replacement Article" field, it'll redirect you. If no value is selected, then the behavior is that it tries to show you the retired article and if you don't have the correct permission to see it, you won't see it and instead see an error message, somewhat like what is mentioned in the documentation.

If you're expecting any other functionality and you feel there's a bug or issue with the platform, please submit a ticket to SN Support for further assistance. Otherwise, I'm glad I could answer your question and provide guidance which in turn resulted in you creating an article with a video to show others how it works, as I've mentioned above.

Take care! 🙂

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Allen Andreas · ‎10-27-2022

Hi,

Has the original article been fully retired? I believe the functionality will only kick-in if the article has fully gone through the retirement process. Clicking the retire button sets it to "Pending Retire", but it's not fully retired if you're using a retire approval flow.

And of course, double check that this system property is true: glide.knowman.enable_article_replacement_on_retire

Let us know? 😀

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Manal AQUIL · ‎10-28-2022

Thanks for responding @Allen Andreas

1. Yes, even after onlick of retire (Pending Retire > Approvals Are Approved > Retire.

Note: Article is retired.

2. glide.knowman.enable_article_replacement_on_retire is true

3. Retired Knowledge Article is attached to Replacement Article via OOB replacement_article field.

Despite, that when I search for retired article via knowledge portal, I am not being redirected to replacement article or 404 record not found(when there is no replacement article.)

Do I myself need to do customizations using replacement_article field in search sources or elsewhere to have this functionality ? If so then I am wondering why it is mentioned in doc this is introduced in Tokyo .

Regards,

Manal

Allen Andreas · ‎10-28-2022

Hi,

Just to ensure we're on the same page, the new feature introduced in Tokyo is to provide a redirection pathway for users who attempt to access retired content. So if you're searching on the portal, out of box, retired articles won't appear, thus you aren't accessing anything.

However, if you were to try and access a retired article (for example you bookmarked it, have the URL, etc.), then the feature introduced in Tokyo would be applicable.

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Manal AQUIL · ‎10-30-2022

1. Yes @Allen Andreas Retired bookmarked articles when accessed are getting redirected to replacement articles.

2. But retired bookmarked articles that don't have replacement articles are not getting redirected to 404 records not found which is expected as per the below URL.

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/tokyo-servicenow-platform/page/product/knowledge-management/conce...

As mentioned in the URL, 301 redirections to replacement articles and 404 records not found sum ups the functionality.

3. Moreover, yes we can't access retired articles from the knowledge portal and homepage but since this redirection functionality is specific to retired articles.

Hence, I am assuming redirection to a replacement article or 404 records not found should happen while we try to access retired articles from anywhere (Please correct me).

Note: Just discovered, redirection is happening at Global Text Search too.