Enabling subcategories in knowledge bases

[MariaLoeffler]

Hello everybody!

We have an issue with displaying new knowledge categories in our knowledge base. I am the owner of the knowledge base an I set some of my collegues to be knowledge managers in this knowledge base.

I created a new category in the knowledge base. This was visible immediately after saving the category.

Now my colleague (knowledge manager) followed the steps in the ServiceNow documentation to create a new subcategory in the knowledge base. The subcategory is set to Active and marked as True for Active in the list of categories. However, the new subcategory does not appear in our knowledge base - only my category (parent) is shown.

What do we have to do to enable the new subcategory?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Dr Atul G- LNG · Accepted solution]

Hi @MariaLoeffler 

Did you have any KB under that sub cat?

[Dr Atul G- LNG · Accepted solution]

Hi @MariaLoeffler 

Did you have any KB under that sub cat?

[MariaLoeffler]

Hi Atul, 

no at this moment we didn't have any published articles in the subcategory. As my colleague published an article in this subcategory on friday, it appeared in the knowledge base.

I just wondered why any category I created was instantly visible and the subcategory my colleague created was not visible in the knowledge base. I guess there is some logic in ServiceNow wether the category is visible or not depending on who created it or if there are any KB articles in it.

Thank you very much for your helpful answer!

[Pam Calvey · Accepted solution]

As Atul says, they must be populated. Also, do you have your value fields lined up properly? Repeat the level name in the labels so they line up well for reporting. Mind your field character limits when you plan labels. 

Category

Business

Subcategory 1

Business Conferencing

Business Office 365

Subcategory 2

Business Office 365 Excel

Business Office 365 Outlook

Business Office 365 Word

[Kim27]

Knowledge categories have a domain associated with them. I believe it's another way to manage access to the articles. Navigate to the full list of categories (kb_category_list.do) and add the Domain column. Compare the domain of the category that can be seen to the one that cannot. If needed, update the domain. This can be done in the list view itself. We set our knowledge category domains to "Global".