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3 weeks ago
Hey!
I’m a bit confused about the whole metadata / keywords / tags topic in ServiceNow KM.
In different videos and material I see things like “Use meta and tags on knowledge articles for relevancy. AI Search utilizes meta and tags for relevance.”
Sounds good. But what does this look like in practical terms?
If you have 1,000+ knowledge articles across one or multiple knowledge bases:
Are you actually adding keywords / meta / tags on articles?
Is it structured?
Can everyone add them?
If yes, doesn’t that just turn into tag chaos?
If no, who governs it? The knowledge manager? A central team?
How much operational admin does that create?
To me, the bigger impact seems to come from: Knowledge actually existing, clear ownership, single source of truth, good structure and formatting, strong titles and problem statements, etc...
Of course, if one could it all then sure. But is it worth it over other things? I'd love some feedback and thoughts!
Does (structured) tagging/meta actually matter for AI Search and Now Assist relevance in your experience?
Thanks!
Solved! Go to Solution.
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2 weeks ago
Have to say that I'm a bit surprised that nobody has mentioned that as soon as you select the Save button on an article, even while in Draft, everything in the article is indexed. With that said, the first rule of using Meta / keywords is don't add anything that is already in the article. Think of it as unnecessarily over-saturating the database and will slow the search down in the portal and backend. The only content needed when using Meta / keywords are terms, keywords and key phrases that are not already in the article.
Thought I'd give answering your questions a go...
If you have 1,000+ knowledge articles across one or multiple knowledge bases:
Are you actually adding keywords / meta / tags on articles?
Only if there is additional, useful content not already in the article that will help the customer locate the article easier.
Is it structured?
If you're referring to the Meta / keywords, the list should be separated by a comma, while key terms and phrases should have underscores between the related words and be separated by a comma as well.
Can everyone add them?
No. Typically only those team members who have been provisioned the role(s) to create and edit articles.
If yes, doesn’t that just turn into tag chaos?
I would say see above but what really causes Meta / keyword chaos is reiterating the article in the Meta field ( been there, seen it and still didn't get a t-shirt for working to clean it up! ).
If no, who governs it? The knowledge manager? A central team?
You had said "one or multiple Knowledge Bases" and centralization would depend on how the Knowledge structure has been set up and the direction leadership wants to take. Not a fan myself because I feel a team member's experience in their area of familiarity helps build the unified voice the content should be delivered to the oraganization in.
Now governance starts with the Knowledge Admin who oversees it all and works with the Knowledge Base Knowledge Manager(s), each who have been provisioned the roles to create, edit, approve and publish articles into the respective Knowledge Base.
The team members who have been provisioned the role(s) to create and edit articles can be limited to doing so in specific categories in a Knowledge Base, because they might be SMEs in that area, or to work on articles in a specific Knowledge Base regardless of category.
How much operational admin does that create?
Not as much as you think it might, especially when team structure is ideally organized and kept up-to-date through regular SCRUMs, while the workflows are optimally processing the requests. The not-so-fun part is to get leadership to agree and allow you to build the underlying structure and processes properly. ( again... still no t-shirt! )
Wait until you start using Knowledge Blocks and break into creating KCS articles!
Trust the information has been at least somewhat helpful and don't hesitate reaching out if you have any additional questions.
Michael
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3 weeks ago
Tags in ServiceNow are labels applied to records (including KB articles) to categorize and organize them for easier retrieval. Tags doesn't play any role when searching for knowledge
Meta are used to boost search results and visibility of specific knowledge articles .you can put in words (Separate terms using commas like search) or phrase (like using underscores (e.g. how_do_I_search_knowledge_keywords)
Pinned articles allow us to have certain articles appear on the top any time a word is used.
Ref: https://www.servicenow.com/community/servicenow-ai-platform-forum/keywords-or-meta/m-p/1103189
Regarding knowledge management Governance , go through it-
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2 weeks ago
I've been struggling to find definitive best practce information about using underscores in meta data. Actually, I have not been to find infor on the ServiceNow platform itself, so a bit reliant on forums such as this.
The 2 links you share above are quite old, 2020 and 2015 - so I can't rely on those.
To the best of my research, it doesn't look like underscores is necessary - but yes, this may depend on the SNow version you are on.
Are you able to confirm whether the use of underscores in meta data is helpful in search, or not?
I am asking in the context of creating a best practive article which will be referred to by quite a few hundred knowledge creators.
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a week ago
Hi,
Everything I have seen has pointed me towards the idea that underscores aren't really relevant in ServiceNow. ServiceNow search quality priority order is roughly: clear, problem-based titles; strong troubleshooting/problem statements in the body; consistent article structure; controlled tagging / metadata; but minor formatting choices (like underscores) re almost irrelevant.
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a week ago
It's actually way more useful to pursue platform agnosticism in metadata formatting. Increasingly our knowledge is consumed by GenAI tools and connectors rather than ServiceNow's search engines, and those tools/connectors all rely on good metadata.
