Using Unhelpful (Marking Articles) vs Flag Article button

[laura_p]

I was wondering if any one was using the feedback tasks created from Unhelpful (Marketing articles) instead of using Flag article. From what I understand Flag Article was meant for more internal IT type requests for changes to an article and Marking articles helpful/unhelpful is more for external.

I notice that the Flag article creates a task but doesn't allow you to categorize it such as with marking Unhelpful in which you can select a reason such as incorrect information, difficult to read, etc.

We have a lot of issues in which publishers are not completing their feedback tasks on time. Because of this many extra tasks get created as others leave the same feedback. It is difficult in the list of tasks to know what is more important as you cannot tell the difference between a formatting issue (less important) vs incorrect information (more important.)

I was wondering if anyone has removed the Flag article feature and replaced with Unhelpful to get better feedback from users? Is there anything that could cause issues if this method was used instead of the Flag Article for feedback?

Thank you.

[Tanushree Maiti]

Hi @laura_p 

OOB following system properties available:

1. glide.knowman.feedback.enable_actionable_feedback_for_rating //[Create actionable feedback task when an article is rated at or lower than this value. 0 or no value indicates that actionable feedback tasks are not enabled for Rating type feedback.
2)glide.knowman.feedback.enable_actionable_feedback_for_helpful //[Create actionable feedback task when an article is marked as not helpful.
[Note: This property is applicable to portal and workspace only.] // OOB default value = false
3) glide.knowman.feedback.enable_actionable_feedback_for_flag //[Create actionable feedback task when an article is flagged.
[Note: This property is applicable to portal and workspace only.] // OOB default value = false

Now for your requirement - in above rating system properties -> Add value as 1  and save it.

Before the Change ->Result: Before the change whenever you were giving the low rating->it will throw Thank you message , if you refresh the page-> you can see nothing saved.

After the Change ->Result:

You will get following popup, to give low rating. once submitted , Feedback task gets generated.

Next you can see ->entry added into kb_feedback_task

[Arnaldo]

Hi Laura 

ServiceNow provides four options to manage knowledge article feedback, designed to address different use cases.

Flag was the first capability introduced and, out of the box (OOTB), requires users to enter a comment both when submitting feedback from a portal (for example, Employee Center) and from the UI. This option always results in the creation of a feedback task.

The remaining options must be explicitly enabled, as described in previous posts.
However,  when used OOTB, they do not generate feedback tasks for submissions made from the UI.

From a best‑practice perspective, it is recommended to consider enabling both Flag and Helpful / Not Helpful. Helpful / Not Helpful is particularly effective for assessing documentation quality and usability from an end‑user perspective, consistent with common industry standards.

Additionally, it is advisable to restrict the Flag option to a defined group of users with appropriate technical expertise (for example, database managers or support teams) who can meaningfully contribute to content improvements.

[Mike Van Vooren]

I agree with your approach and that is what we do also.  However, we have the Flag option available for all of our users, regardless of persona.  We like that the Flag option forces the user to type something in (hopefully useful).  With the "Not Helpful", we have the free text feed optional unless they choose the "Other" bullet.  We have often found the free text provided here isn't always as fruitful as that from the Flag option.  We like having as many ways as possible to allow users to leave us feedback since we don't know user's habits while viewing the content.  

The only thing that is still missing with both of those options is the ability to add an attachment.  So often, the flagger wants to provide an updated screenshot or image and can't do it easily.  We have to reach out to them separately to get that.