Examples of best practice for creating multiple knowledge bases

[hhr]

Hi, I am looking for some best practice examples on how to set up knowledge bases in a global, multi function company. Are there any published best practice that I can refer to.

[servicenowkevin]

I wrote a blog a few months ago that may help you:

FAQ on implementing a Multi-KB system

If you have any questions beyond this, let me know and I'll be happy to answer them.

One thing I don't talk about in the blog is making sure there's a governance model in place for KBs that aren't directly under your control. Without the governance model the content runs the risk of being stale and user satisfaction will wane.

[hhr]

Hi,

Thank you for your email. I looked at your blog post and it was very helpful. We have a couple of KBs that are up and running and requests for additional knowledge bases comes from different groups.

My question is what is the best practice regarding creating a new KB. In Helsinki we can control who has the ability to view a knowledge base but once we give access to a group to contribute, the group can revise all knowledge articles in that knowledge base. Is there a way to group the people who can write in a KB, so they are not able to edit all knowledge articles in the knowledge base.

Also, as you mentioned below for governance of all KBs is there any suggestions you might have.

Thank you,

[servicenowkevin]

Have you already reviewed this document?

Select user criteria for a knowledge base

I found it helped a lot when working on our user criteria.

[Dave Smith1 · Accepted solution]

Each KB can have people nominated as authors (Can Contribute) or viewers (Can Read) in User Criteria, but these controls are imposed on a per-KB basis, rather than per-category or per-article. In other words, a contributor in one KB can edit any articles, including those not written by them.   Don't forget that there's an audit trail showing who has been changing it, and when, so it's possible to identify authors in conflict.

From a governance point of view, there's a Publishing Approval workflow that means authored articles require one of the KB's nominated Knowledge Managers to approve an article for publication before it's viewable by readers, but this doesn't prevent an author from amending an article once it's published - you may want to consider a BR that flicks the article back to "Draft" if the last edit date is later than the approved date.

In terms of best practise: treat KBs as libraries, consider the core purpose of each library and decide what criteria makes readers/writers accordingly. It is easier to have several KBs with access set at the library door than to leave the doors open and attempt to secure individual rooms (categories) or books (articles).