Functional differences between ServiceNow's kcs_candidate, kcs_contributor, kcs_publisher roles?

[Stephanie Seal]

I am KCS v6 certified and understand what the differences are between the functions of a candidate, contributor and a publisher. I am not finding documentation on the differences in capability between the 3 roles in ServiceNow - kcs_candidate, kcs_contributor, kcs_publisher. The only thing I have found so far is the article confidence level changes depending on which role authors the published article.

What am I missing? Are there plans to add specific functionality to the roles in a future release to align them to  true kcs role functionality?

Thanks

[David Kay]

Since ServiceNow is KCS v6 Verified, the self-assessment worksheet they submitted to The KCS Academy will provide more details on the specifics of their implementation.  You might ask if they'd share this with you.

In terms of using KCS license level to lock down specific capabilities (e.g., Candidates can't edit content to which there have been other contributors; Contributors can't set the Audience to External), we actually discourage this.  It makes a lot of extra work for administrators and participants over time, and we rarely see the problem of people doing *too much* in the knowledge base.  And given that Candidates and Contributors will be working with a Coach to get to Publisher, they're not running open loop--their Coach has an eye on what they're doing and can course-correct if needed.  More on that here (from 2014, but still relevant): https://www.dbkay.com/culture/technology-enable-not-enforce

Best, David

[thomashansson]

Heres  an article where there is a link to the self-assement worksheet.
KCS® Frequently Asked Questions - ServiceNow

I have read it but I must admit that I don´t understand from the documentation if a contributor can publish by themselves and a candidate would have a coach to publish? 

[Randall King]

I understand what you're saying, and I reviewed the link that you posted. The problem I see is that not all organizations have an ideal environment where they are doing everything right according to KCS.

I work for a large university. Our IT service desk employs 80-100 part-time student employees. We allow all of them to create and edit articles, and we try to move in the KCS direction as much as we can. However, as the knowledge base administrator, I cannot have these students publishing content for the entire university or the general public to view. What they publish (whether it should or not) would be viewed as the official stance of the entire IT division.

From what I've studied about KCS, the Consortium actually recommends not having people publish external articles until they've reached a certain competency. Whether they recommend using technology or other means to "restrict" that, I don't know. However, in our environment technological restrictions would be ideal since don't have the resources to monitor things daily. It could be months before I notice a change or new article that shouldn't have gone out.

The website that you linked talks about trust, but perhaps that's with full-time employees who are more competent. We are dealing with employees who are sometimes working their first job. While they can make a bad decision on the phone with a customer, as the website points out, that's with one person. When they publish a knowledge article, the likelihood of that negative information spreading increases exponentially; customers can view it and share it; the agent's peers can view it and share it with customers, or they can use it over the phone to incorrectly "solve" an issue.

I don't see a way around us using technology and roles to restrict permissions at our university, and this even seems ideal to me from the principle of least privilege standpoint in any organization.

[Pranesh072]

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/quebec-servicenow-platform/page/product/knowledge-management/refe...

kcs_candidate	KCS candidates understand the basics of KCS.
kcs_contributor	KCS contributors have the capability and authority to create or validate knowledge articles in their product areas without being reviewed by a knowledge coach.
kcs_publisher	KCS publishers are authors who are well versed in KCS standards and create more external-facing articles.

KCS Roles for the Team: Detailed Responsibilities and Qualifications

The following section provides guidance on the type of knowledge, the skills, and, in some cases, the personality traits that are necessary for success with KCS. The Consortium and its partners offer training specifically geared to acquiring the skills for these different roles. Additional details can be found in the KCS v6 Adoption Guide.

The KCS Council is responsible for defining the roles and responsibilities as a part of building the foundation before the pilot.  This includes updating job or role descriptions as well as defining the expected competencies for each KCS role within the KCS Competency Model (i.e. KCS Candidate, KCS Contributor, etc.)  They may also modify these as a result of analyzing the pilot or during early adoption.   Once KCS has been implemented and the KCS Council takes on the responsibility for evolving the maturity of the KCS Practices, they may identify the need to update the competency model and the competencies for specific roles.  Normally they would propose the changes for management approval.

KCS Candidate

The KCS Candidate understands the basics of KCS and knows how to interact with the knowledge base in a way that captures their experience and capitalizes on the collective experience of the organization. A KCS Candidate must be able to recognize relevant information in the knowledge base and exercise judgment in their interaction with it. They should not use or deliver a KCS article that they do not understand. Since articles in the knowledge base are created with a specific audience in mind, dictating vocabulary and level of technical content, a Candidate adapts knowledge to suit the profile of the target audience.

Upon completion of training (often web-based training or an element of new hire training), the KCS Candidate should:

• Understand the structured problem solving process
• Accurately and consistently capture the requestor's context in the workflow
• Search for and find existing KCS articles
• Review and either link or flag articles in the problem solving workflow
• Modify their own KCS articles
• Frame new KCS articles (Work in Progress or Not Validated) which will be reviewed or finished by a KCS Contributor or KCS Coach

KCS Contributor

The KCS Contributor reviews (as they reuse) or finishes KCS articles that are framed by themselves or others, making sure the articles adhere to the content standard. The KCS Contributor has the capability and authority to create or validate articles in their product area without review by a Coach. They may also author and approve articles for broad audience visibility.  They may directly improve articles that have article audience set to Internal and should flag articles in an External state that need to be updated or improved.

While the KCS Candidate creates articles that are Work in Progress or in a Not Validated state, the KCS Contributor can create content that is in a Validated state. A Validated article implies a high degree of confidence in both the technical accuracy and compliance with the content standard. A KCS Contributor can put articles that are in a Work in Progress or Not Validated state into a Validated state if in his or her judgment the article is "sufficient to solve."

The KCS Contributor competencies are incremental to those of KCS Candidate and involve a detailed understanding of the importance of the context of the audience, the content standard, the Content Standard Checklist, and the KCS processes. They should be able to work independently by creating well-structured KCS articles and be adept at enhancing others' articles to make them visible to a wider audience.  The KCS Contributor should also be able to demonstrate understanding by passing an exam. 

KCS Publisher

The KCS Publisher is authorized to set the article audience to External or publish content to an external audience, typically on the web, as well as to modify externally-facing content.  In KCS environments, "publish" means making the KCS article visible to partners or customers. Compared to a KCS Contributor, the KCS Publisher takes a more global, outward view of the audience and the content. The KCS Publisher knows the technical implications of the knowledge being published, has an understanding of what material is priority information, and has an understanding of copyright and trademark policies enforced by his organization. The KCS Publisher is also responsible for understanding the external audience and publishing requirements outlined in the content standard.  Because External KCS articles may be linked from other websites and may be visible to a large audience, the KCS Publisher must exercise good judgment about modifying External articles.

In determining readiness to move to the KCS Publisher level, consider that the KCS Publisher should be consistently adhering to the Content Standard Checklist, following the KCS workflow (measured by the Process Adherence Review), and have consistently positive feedback on and high reuse of article content. They should reliably focus on the success of the team and the customer over individual success.

The KCS Publisher may flag External content for archival or deletion, but because removing externally-facing content from the web is an activity with difficult-to-assess implications, typically the KCS Publisher can't personally archive or delete.

As KCS matures in the organization, a high percentage of the knowledge workers should be at the KCS Publisher level. This percentage allows the just-in-time publishing of content that drives a high level of customer success with web-based self-help. This is especially important in order not to create a backlog of flagged External content, because KCS Contributors may not directly edit External articles.  The KCS Publisher should also be able to demonstrate proficiency by passing an exam.

https://library.serviceinnovation.org/KCS/KCS_v6/KCS_v6_Practices_Guide/030/040/030/020