Using Insert and Stay on a Retired KB article

[daveraleigh]

Hi -

SNow states that:
To reuse a retired article, create a new article with the same content, which is published once approved.

A colleague suggested using "Insert and Stay" to easily recreate the content

Are there any drawbacks/ramifications to doing this? (Other than a new KB # which is the same thing that would happen when creating a brand new KB article)

Thanks
Dave

[Michael Ritchie]

Insert and stay keeps all original values except the SysID (real SN unique identifier) and number.  So if the original article is retired then the new article will also be retired.  This is why you see Copy buttons elsewhere in the platform like with Catalog Items, Change Requests, etc where there is a script that will copy specific attributes.

[daveraleigh]

Hmmm...when I Insert and Stay on a Retired article, the new document's default Workflow is set to"Draft".  I've published the new one and and now is in the Published state?

[Michael Ritchie]

OK then there could be business rules that are changing some values such as that.  In my tenure here I use insert and stay all the time, but there are issues with values carrying over that are pushing into say read only fields that you don't have an opportunity to update.  Or if you have workflows or other automations that won't kick off unless the state is Draft as an example.  It is definitely a beneficial feature and could work, I would just suggest doing some testing to ensure there aren't other attributes carried over that may cause issue.

One issue to call out with insert and stay is with image type fields, which fortunately kb_knowledge doesn't have.  What happens with insert and stay with those fields is they still point to the old record's image and you don't get the update/delete options.  You have to use a background script to remove it unfortunately.  So that is where a copy button will work.

[Michael QCKM]

We considered using Insert/Stay, but found that it duplicates ALL article data, like Use Count, View Count, etc.  You certainly don't want a new article to have 100 views out the gate! so, we requested a "Clone Article" button (no idea how it was done) that clean-cloned all article content, except for things like use, views, ratings, and versions, etc.