Knowledge Subscription - Subscribe to a knowledge base

[Niels Aksel]

Hi guys

We plan on starting to use the knowledge base subscription feature by allowing all internal users to subscribe to knowledge bases from the knowledge portal.

i'm trying to understand how user criteria work together with subscription feature and have not been able to find anything in the documentation. Many of our articles have a "Can read" user criteria attached which prevents some users from reading the articles.

Will users, who are not able to read the article, still receive notification about a new article is available if subscribed to the knowledge base?

[Barry_W]

We have user criteria in place on certain articles, and customers who have access to the knowledge base and are subscribed to it still receive a notification when a new KBA is created, regardless of whether they can actually view it. Curious as to whether there is a solution for this. 

Thanks.

[Niels Aksel]

I did some testing today and found notifications were NOT sent out if the user is not able to read the knowledge article. We are on Orlando and maybe something has changed. I will check with HI Support if they are able to answer if that is the case

[Barry_W]

Hi Nielsm,

According to our notification logs an email is still being sent to anyone subscribed to the knowledge base when an article is revised (or a new one created), even if the recipient does NOT have access to the article due to user criteria restrictions.

Did you receive any response to this on the Hi portal?

[Niels Aksel · Accepted solution]

Hi BW

Yes, I got a response from HI and also had a short meeting with them to troubleshoot. My problem was related to the user criteria (the user was able to read the article) and after having corrected the mistake I found the notification mails was not sent unless the user is able to read the article. HI support confirmed this behavior.

When updating user criteria and testing user criteria, I found it is important you logout and restart your browser to make sure changes take effect

Here is what I did to confirm with HI support:

1. Add contribute user criteria to the knowledge base (to only allow admin to create articles - this is because contribute access will also give read access)
2. Impersonate User A (who has the knowledge role but do not have contribute access to the knowledge base)
3. Navigate to the knowledge portal and subscribe to the knowledge base
4. End impersonation
5. As admin, create and publish a new article in the knowledge base
6. Impersonate User A and verify User A can read the article
7. Verify User A receive a notification about the new article
8. As admin, create and publish a new article in the knowledge base, this time with a “Can Read” user criteria to only allow admin to read the article
9. Impersonate User A and verify User A is not able to read the article
10. Verify User A do not receive a notification about the new article

The conclusion is that users will only receive a notification IF they have access to read the article

We tested above using a Orlando developer environment