With great power comes great responsibility. This expression applies whether you're a crime-fighting archanid-man or a knowledge administrator. But only the latter grants you the superpower to create knowledge articles via the Create Content button. For various reasons, you may want to limit this power to certain users in your organization.
Two ways to control who the Create Content buttons appears for:
- Configure the User Criteria permissions
- Customize the canCreate in the KBKnowledgeSNC script
Configure the User Criteria permissions to hide the Create Content UI action
In KMv3, the Create Content button is controlled by User Criteria contribute permissions. Knowledge bases use User Criteria records to determine which sets of users can create, read, write, and retire knowledge articles within that KB. The Create Content button will appear only to those users you've specified in the criteria.
Only users with at least one role can create and edit articles. Users without any roles can read articles but cannot contribute.
To control which users have the ability to create knowledge articles:
- Navigate to Knowledge > Administration > Knowledge Bases.
- Select a knowledge base you manage.
- Select the Can Contribute related list.
- Select or create user criteria with the applicable roles.
- Add the same criteria to the Can Contribute related list.
(You can achieve the same thing with the Cannot Contribute list and instead determine which users will not be able to create content.)
Customize the canCreate in the KBKnowledgeSNC script
Another way to disable the Create Content button is to customize the canCreate in the KBKnowledgeSNC script include so it only appears to knowledge admins. However, be aware that this script is depended on by (and will therefore affect) other scripts. Any change you make to this script will affect all knowledge bases, so ensure this is what you want across the board.
How to hide the Create Content button from everyone
If you have only one knowledge base, you can disable the button by commenting out th efollowing code in the UI Macro kb_header_search:
<!--
<j2:if test="${new KBKnowledgeSNC().canCreate()}">
<button id="create_content" type="button" class="btn btn-default" onclick="window.open('kb_knowledge.do', '_self')">${gs.getMessage('Create Content')}</button>
</j2:if>
-->
If you have multiple knowledge bases, you'll need to select all the KBs in the Can Contribute list.
Change the text on the Create Content UI action
The KMv3 page that contains this button is not directly editable. However, you can configure the button text by creating an entry in sys_ui_message. In the kb_my_knowledge_header UI macro, the gs.getMessage will pull from the messages table if it finds a message with a matching "Key" value. Here are the steps for adjusting the message:
- Navigate to System UI > Messages.
- Create a new record and fill in the fields:
- Key: Create Content
- Message: [New text]
This new text will appear anywhere in the UI that "Create Content" used to appear if there are other places with this text.
As knowledge admins, you can now determine who will share your ability to create knowledge via the all-powerful Create Content button.
For more on this topic, check out these helpful resources:
- Create Content button in legacy and v3 knowledge landing page appears regardless of ACL/User Criteri...
- Video walkthrough: How to control knowledge access through user criteria
- Select user criteria for a knowledge base
See how other ServiceNow customers managed their Create Content button:
Change text on "Create Content" button on self service knowledge
Disabling the "Create Content" button at the top of the Knowledge Base page
