Knowledge article ID vs sys ID

Les1 · ‎02-26-2021

for knowledge articles, in the XML one does not find "sys ID" mentioned but rather the field "article ID"

can anyone elaborate around this construct as it differs from other record types where usually Sys ID is found on the xml as well as when exporting records.

i'm trying to test some article imports from one servicenow instance to a different customer instance in which the issue of LIKE article numbers or LIKE sys ID would be things to contend with.

in my tests thus far, i took an article xml for an existing article, then altered the ARTICLE ID to see what it does when importing, but it simply updated the existing article instead of making a duplicate as i would have expected. So this indicates that article ID is not the unique identifier but rather the sysID still is but sysID does not show in the xml or in exporting the article to excel.

thanks for your help

Appli · ‎02-26-2021

Ok, after installing Knowledge Management Advanced plugin, this article_id field appeared as both dictionary entry in the table and in XML for knowledge record. However sys_id is also in the list. Made a quick test:

- exported published KB article to XML, article ID and sys_id are there and they are the same

<article_id>c85cd2519f77230088aebde8132e70c2</article_id>
    <sys_id>c85cd2519f77230088aebde8132e70c2</sys_id>

- unpublished article, modified it, published again (as v2) and exported to XML

<article_id>c85cd2519f77230088aebde8132e70c2</article_id>
    <sys_id>6bce8f422f2a201003bd5e072799b65b</sys_id>

It seems article_id always refers to the original version of the article record while sys_id - to the current (latest) one.

Hope it helps

View solution in original post

Les1 · ‎03-01-2021

Thank you Appli for doing that testing to figure this out. hopefully they get this added to docs

now i just need to find out how to export sys_id into spreadsheet as it doesnt appera to do that with the base export list to xls UI funtion.