Hi,
Here are some examples:
With customization:
In OOB portal:
In both instances, you have a parent category (compensation - ServiceNow) and then child categories underneath.
You 'could' create a parent category for each master article and make each step a child category to the parent. And then it would appear as you would like.
However, depending on how big your knowledge base gets, you could end up with a crazy amount of categories. So, this may or may not work, depending on how you execute this, since you'd have one parent category per main article.
Another option: group articles and steps together better and use a solid naming convention for the child articles.
Example: Let's say you have 5 articles all related to Microsoft programs:
Parent category: MicroSoft Help Tips
Main articles in parent category:
Outlook (with 3 child articles/steps)
Excel: (with 5 child articles/steps)
PowerPoint: (with 4 child articles/steps)
... Etc.
Under the Parent Microsoft category, you would see:
> Outlook (3) (this is number of articles in that child category)
> Excel (5)
> PowerPoint (4)
Etc.
You won't see EACH ARTICLE listed out on the first level - just as you see in my first screenshot. You see a number behind each child category.
But, when you click on that child category, (example, "Awards & Incentives" under Compensation or "Knowledge" under ServiceNow), search results will come up that show only the articles in that child category.
Then, users can pick the one they need or go through them one at a time. (This is where a strong naming convention could be good, as in "Outlook Tip #1: Getting started" or "Step 1: Set up your inbox format," etc., so users know where to go first.)
The danger here is that you don't want to have too many categories or you'll confuse your users.
So, a few other considerations:
- You can drill down at least 3 levels under a parent category. So, depending on how many articles you have, perhaps you do something like:
- Parent category 1
- Sub category
- Help article 1
- Help article 2
- Help article 3
- Sub category
- Sub category
In other words, drill down more, if needed, so you don't have more than 20-ish main categories on your first level.
- Use naming conventions and SEARCH. Using a STRONG, consistent and UNIQUE naming convention for topics - and then mimicking that in your search terms that you assign to your articles, can help group articles together when people just do a search. (This is probably a good idea anyway for best user experience. Combined, users will be able to eyeball easily which articles go together AND have an easier time searching for all the articles in a series.
- Ditch most of this and use ATTACHMENTS for your steps instead. Less mess in your categories. Here's how it would work (I'll try to create a visual for you.)
- In your main article, you have links to your child/sub articles, right?
- User experience to link to an article or to link to an attachment is the same > it's still a click for the user > you can code the attachment to open in an internet browser window - this is easiest with PDFs but can be done with other basic formats, too, such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel > see the attached guide about attachments for more detailed instructions.
- When steps/processes/articles get updated, you just swap out the attachment.
- Because the attachments are all contained within your main article, when users search for your main article topic, they'll only get that one article - so they'll be forced to find their help info within your main article > no risk of getting "derailed" by a random, rogue article (as long as the rest of your knowledge base is in order, of course). 😉
- So it would look like:
MAIN CATEGORY=MICROSOFT HELP DOCUMENTS
Outlook Help Tips > main article
PowerPoint Help Tips > main article
Excel Help Tips > main article
Open one of the articles, and it would look like:
Outlook Help Tips
Hello, thanks for reading this article. Here are some guides to help you set up your Outlook inbox and general settings:
Step 1 - Getting started [link to PDF attachment]
Step 2 - Create your signature [link to PDF attachment]
Etc.
In other words - it would look exactly the same, act mostly the same, as if you're linking to other articles within your knowledge base. It's just that the individual articles won't appear in search. Only the main article will appear in search.
ServiceNow still pulls from attachments for search terms. So, if your PDF attachment says, "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," if you search by any word in that phrase, your main article (outlook help tips) will come up in the search results.
So - lots of options - lots to think about - a couple of different ways you can categorize and make your info searchable.
Please reply with follow-up questions. Happy to help! Good luck to you!
