Need to make a field on Knowledge Article form mandatory, before the 'workflow' field is set to 'review'.

[shawnclune]

BACKGROUND:

A client wants to make a field on the Knowledge Article (KA) form mandatory before the article moves from a state of 'Draft' to a state of 'Review'.

Out-of-the-box (OOTB) ... a user can fill out the KA and leave the 'Article Body' field blank ... and click the UI Action to 'Publish' the KA and the article will move from a state of 'Draft' to a state of 'Review' with a BLANK (empty) Article Body field. 

This doesn't make sense - right?  Why would a 'Reviewer' want to review a 'blank' KA?

So the client wants to make the 'Article Body' field mandatory before the KA can move from a state of 'Draft' to a state of 'Review'

STEPS I've tried/taken:

I created a Business Rule as follows:

Field being used to key on:

 (Note I can select 'Workflow',  below in the condition, but not 'workflow_state')

When to Run:

Advanced:

RESULTS:

When I test this and I create a KA and leave the 'Article Body' field blank (empty) and then click the UI Action to Publish the article, I get the following (see below).

The KA is still being set to a Workflow state of 'REVIEW'.

Thoughts?

[Pam Calvey]

Regarding the process itself, technically someone could attach a file with all the information needed, no text, and choose Display attachments or Attachment link. Personally I teach people to never use Attachment Link (I should probably have it removed) and strongly discourage Display Attachments. I tell them to provide a "Click here to open attachment" with a "New window" target in the Insert/Modify Link form. We also use multi-level text fields, so I can't make text mandatory as any level might be used. Just something to think about. 

[Allen Andreas]

Hi Pam,

Nice points to consider.

Perhaps a compromise could be that the UI Policy makes that article body field mandatory unless the "Attachment link" field is checked (true).

Otherwise, as good practice, I think the article body should at least have "something" in it, even if they use "Display attachments".

Thanks for presenting that side of thinking!

[shawnclune]

Pam,

Interesting insights for sure.  Thank you.

BTW, what do you mean when you say, "We also use multi-level text fields, so I can't make text mandatory as any level might be used"?

I've not heard the term "multi-level text fields" before.

[Pam Calvey]

We have a customization that allows us to have 4 text fields, Level 0 (Self-Service) Levels 1,2 and 3.  As the levels go up the user criteria number goes down, that is, less people see it. This allows for escalation of instructions across teams and the most privacy at Level 3. For instance, only the NOC and Application Support might see Level 3 if those teams add their user criteria to the Can Read restricted Level 3 field when they author. So an article might be level 0 only, or Level 0 and 1 only, or Level 3 only, any combination. 

[Kim27]

If your customer is not opposed to creating a custom template, you can easily create one that mimics the standard template but can require the article body be completed prior to saving. This way you can still leverage OOB workflows. 

I agree the article body should never be empty. We also discourage the use of attachments in our KB, but asking for some information be added to the body to explain audience, use, where to go for help for the attached document.