Knowledge - Version Control

iball · ‎01-14-2014

Hi All,

I'm currently in the process of scoping the Knowledge module for our deployment of ServiceNow (Calgary release).

One of the business requirements is that there is version control for the Knowledge articles, similar to a Wiki. Is this supported in ServiceNow?

I did come across the Managed Document and Knowledge Document plugins, however this seems to be more related to uploading actual documents to ServiceNow. We want version control around the actual Knowledge article itself.

A thought I did have if it isn't supported would be to make use of the Audit table, Updates field and also add a "Major Version" field. The Audit table could capture changes to the article description (and other fields), the Updates field would be the revision number and is automatically updated. The Major Version would be automatically updated each time the document is published.

Any thoughts or advise would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Ian

Jamie_douglas · ‎01-14-2014

Hey,

So you want to manage the life cycle of knowledge articles right?

If this is so, how do you want to manage them?

My Experience with knowledge:

Retiring articles:

Create a script that will retire your article after a specified period, maybe 6 months maybe 18 months, whatever your requirements are.

Day to day management:

I have used the KCS methodology to manage the life-cycle of an article.

Quick run down on roles we used:

KCS1 - itil user - able to search articles

KCS2 - itil user with some knowledge training - can edit/update articles

KCS3 - Power knowledge user - able to publish articles so that end users (non itil users) can see articles. This needs to be dished out lightly to people with good grammar and who can explain techy stuff to non techy people.

We also used statuses for specific purposes such as:

approved - KCS1 can see and search

publish - KCS1 and end users can see and search

retire - once an article reached its expiry date it would change from draft or publish to retire which is then view able by KCS2 to either decommission or update and set to approved or published again.

Another important item:

Marking an incident or request as "knowledge required" created a knowledge submission and assigned to KCS2 users to create and approve. These are then traceable KPI's for those staff and you should build up a solid knowledge base pretty quickly.

The information above is really handy as out of box the only status to use if you want ITIL users to see the articles is Published which means end users can see them too.

By creating a few roles i.e KCS1, 2 & 3 and changing a few statuses you can "approve" items to be viewed by ITIL users and then change status to "Publish" for those articles that you want end users to see.

One tip I would give you that you should take on board.. A lot of companies want to push end users onto a portal for self help so that they can reduce their inbound calls and empower end users to help themselves.. Providing end users with GOOD knowledge will aid in reaching these goals so I would say you want to make sure you get a good knowledge process in place.

I have a few short documents on KCS if you would like to read them, might give you some insight. PM me if you would like them!

Hope that gives you some ideas!

View solution in original post

Mujtaba Amin Bh · ‎01-22-2015

Hello Jamie,

I saw your answers on Managed Documents plug-in and Knowledge Management and am impressed with the same. I have a requirement on the same and i would appreciate if you can provide your thoughts on it.

I want to create a document store in service now. However, the requirement is that end users should only be able to see the document's title and description and should not be able to download or view the complete document.

They should order the document and once the same is approved by the document owner, they should receive the document in an email.

I hope you understood the requirement. Please let me know your views on how can we implement the same using managed documents plugin.

Thanking you in anticipation.

Regards,

Mujtaba Bhat

Uncle Rob · ‎01-15-2014

We purchased the Knowledge turnkey solution from Crossfuze. Version control is only one of the many features you'll get with that solution, and so far we're really happy with it.

Once a knowledge article is Published, the text of the KBA is locked down. You can only alter the KBA by proposing a new version, which runs through an approval process. The KBA Version itself is a task record. Once its been fully approved, the old KBA text will be replaced with the new KB Version text. Your KB number and all its relationships are retained.

On top of the version control, you also get the AWESOME feature of being able to link Catalog Items to the KBA in the same way you link Affected CI's today. Its like having a whole separate catalog interface, except its searchable with Knolwedge!

iball · ‎01-16-2014

Thanks guys.

While a turnkey solution sounds good, I can't see me getting approval for the $$.

I think I'll probably be implement something like the KCS solution with a version number on the article.

Jerry20 · ‎01-31-2014

I agree with Jamie on having GOOD knowledge base established before a self service portal site is up and running.

faisal_dadabhoy · ‎09-18-2014

This is an older post.

Just adding some information about version control with Knowledge.

In ServiceNow Share "Karlo Parulan" has uploaded a version control solution with KB article.

ServiceNow Share

I have not implemented or tested it yet but seems to be a good solution.