Assigning approvers to Knowledge category

[vidhya8]

For a Knowledge base with category->sub-category structure, what is the best way to assign single or multiple approvers to a category? When an article is created under the category/subcategory, an auto approval request must be triggered to the assigned approver(s).

Our scenario is as below:

The Knowledge -Approval publish workflow is enabled for the KB. The articles move from Draft- Review- Publish but only the Knowledge Manager is authorized to approve. We want to create a system which has specific approvers for categories and then as a final step the Knowledge Manager approves and publishes.

We are on Fuji.

Any help is much appreciated.

[Deepak Ingale1]

Hi Vidhya,

I have something in mind though I have not implemented it.

It is just an Idea and even it may require much brainstorming.

You can create one table, create category as per the categories available on KB.

For each category, create a group and add all the approvers to that group. This group will represent all the members responsible for approving 'Category' specific KB.

You can write down script include so that once KB is created, it will do the lookup on your created table by passing KB article category. You will return the group as answer matching with category.

Now call that script include in workflow and store the returned value in scratchpad object of workflow.

You can then leverage 'Group Approval' activity to define approval criteria.

[vidhya8]

Thanks Deepak. We are looking at something that can be done out of the box for now. Would your approach require an update to the table when a new category is added to the KB?

[Deepak Ingale1]

Yes, it will require, but I don't think that would be a much maintenance work.

You don't have to do anything in workflow with this mechanism, that is where it is good.

[SimonDunsmoor]

Our solution provider put together something similar to this for us.   We were having problems with Knowledge Authors creating/editing content which should be managed by other Authors.   We put logic in place that allows this kind of editing/authoring of another's "owned" knowledge, but when saved/submitted, an approval is kicked over to Knowledge Management.   Laura and I then go in, review and approve/reject and the document continues down its path.   I am sure with a little tweaking you could just have the appropriate Author get that task instead.   Let me know if you'd like me to get you connected with our solution provider.   No idea of cost or if they'd provide that pro bono as all of my Knowledge work was wrapped into our go-live plan.   I'm happy with their results in testing.