Flagging related articles across multiple knowledge base instances

[Jo_Dunne]

Hoping someone can give me some guidance! 

We have multiple knowledge base instances which are managed separately (and by different teams), but there are some articles that are similar - so when a change is made to an article in 1 instance, we are looking at the best way to ensure that any related article across other instances are also updated as we can't rely on the authors / owners to do this as often there are different people contributing to the different knowledge bases and articles. 

Has anyone had any similar challenges and therefore able to offer any advice? 

Thanks in advance!

[Flitdog78]

Honestly Jo - this is a governance issue.  I would suggest here a look at all your knowledge bases and what can be joined together. 

You have several articles that are similar.  Can these be merged?
Do they answer the same question from the same user? - this will then cut down on double working - could you get your knowledge authors to validate the articles with the subject matter experts before publication?  
I think you have lots of room for manoeuvre here, but you'll need good clarity on how you want to manage your knowledge bases.  

[Dr Atul G- LNG]

Hi @Jo_Dunne 

I think we need to change the approach here.

if articles are common, better to put in 1 Base and use user criteria to hide/ show. 

If you keep in many bases so it is all manual efforts you need to update to update all, as article work on version system and each base / artcile has workflow assign. so it is not that easy to update the 1 article and make changes in all. 

[Jo_Dunne]

Thanks for the reply - to add some context to the issue, we have knowledge bases to support our internal help desk colleagues but also knowledge bases to help colleagues to self-serve things - all are for colleague purposes but are different in way in which we use them. Hence there being various different instances. 

Would you still suggest a single instance with different permissions for help desk vs everyone else? 

Jo

[Dr Atul G- LNG]

Hi @Jo_Dunne 

Interesting use case. I will say go with different permission of help desk.