How to enable access to knowledge article without logging into Service Portal

[Jeroen6]

We would like to grant users access who aren't logged in SN yet. According the docs this should be made possible by what's explained here: https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/orlando-servicenow-platform/page/product/knowledge-management/task/make-knowledge-visible-to-public.html

What should happen: I should be able to read the article, even when I'm not logged into my account.

What happens: I copy the permalink and open a private browser to ensure I'm not logged into my account. I verify the article is valid, which is the case.

The article cannot be read. When I follow the steps in the link I get this error the article cannot be found. When I'm logged into my SN, I can read it.

What could it be?

[Anish kumar]

If the KB Article is marked public anyone should be able to access it with the URL for that article.

Also, check below for allowing knowledge article for service portal

https://hi.service-now.com/kb_view.do?sysparm_article=KB0564169

Please be aware of the potential impact of setting the pages to public however (as described inthe article), as you will need to review the security settings on all of the other KB's to ensure you are not granting public access to that content unintentionally too.

Hope this will be useful for you.

Kindly mark it correct and helpful if it solves your issue.

Thanks and Regards,

Anish kumar

[Jeroen6]

Hi Anish,

I will look into it later, as the day comes to an end here in my part of the world. You make an excellent point regarding the impact of public pages. Best thing is able to access without logging for company employees. If that's even possible, because how can we verify someone is a employee when he's not logging in? Answer: we can't.

I think the best thing is user clicks on link and is redirected to the login page when he's not logged into SN.

[Gaurav Shirsat]

Hi Jeroen

The Concept is called as Guest  User.

Guest user is used for all unauthenticated transaction in ServiceNow. A few Examples are

Processing of inbound email actions: When an email is received by ServiceNow, tool does not know if the user exists in user table and hence does not know about the authenticity of the transaction. The guest user then processes the script of the matching inbound action and if the "sent from" matches with any profile existing in sys_user table, system impersonates that user and as per his access, performs operation on target records. If user is not found, system processes script through session of guest user.

 Processing of SSO authentication: When a user send a SAML request and ServiceNow receives the response, the guest user actually logs in and finds the relevant IDP to be used for the authentication. Further, it also queries sys_user table to be used in the SSO scripts to check if the user who is trying to login through SSO actually exists in sys_user table. Guest user should always exists in global scope in domain separated instances as global scope entitle the user to access all data/processes

Second:- KA is not Public, so Guest can not see the KA..

you have to enable the external or public user.perform the below things.

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/kingston-customer-service-management/page/product/customer-commun...

https://hi.service-now.com/kb_view.do?sysparm_article=KB0564169

 also one more suggession

in Service Portal widget go to Knowledge Article Comments and uncheck public if you want to restrict the user.

 if you want more detail, please read my answer to the synonym question on some other users' question.

https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_inbox

Please Mark Correct and Helpful

Thanks and Regards

Gaurav Shirsat

[Jeroen6]

Just a quick note on this issue from last week. I haven't got the change to look into this for more detail for now. I'll keep you posted, thank you for your valuable answer.

There is however a solution for the article which was not found. It was in Draft status!