Managing email notifications in Knowledge Management

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 6 minutes to read
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    Summary of Managing email notifications in Knowledge Management

    This guide explains the various email notifications available within the ServiceNow Knowledge Management application. These notifications help ensure relevant users stay informed about tasks and updates related to knowledge articles, such as feedback, subscriptions, approvals, translations, expirations, and quality reviews. Administrators enable these notifications by activating specific plugins, and users can customize their notification preferences to suit their roles and responsibilities.

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    Types of Email Notifications and Recipients

    • Knowledge Article Feedback Tasks: Notify assigned users or submitters about feedback task events like comments, creation, reassignment, resolution acceptance or rejection, and resolution completion. Requires the Knowledge Management Core plugin.
    • Knowledge Subscriptions: Alert authors, ownership group members, revisers, knowledge base owners, and subscribers about article checkouts, comments, publications, and revisions. Ownership group notifications require the Advanced plugin.
    • Knowledge Article Approval Publishing Workflow: Inform knowledge base owners, managers, ownership group members, and article authors or revisers about article approval or rejection during publishing workflows. Enabled via the Core plugin.
    • Translation Tasks: Notify assigned users and submitters about translation task assignments and closures. Requires both the Advanced and Internationalization plugins.
    • Expiring Knowledge Articles: Monthly reminders about articles approaching expiration, sent to authors, knowledge base owners, revisers, and ownership group members if enabled. Activation requires the Core plugin and setting a specific property to true.
    • Article Quality Index (AQI) Reviews: Notify users who last updated articles and ownership groups about AQI reviews. Requires the Advanced plugin.

    Practical Use and Configuration

    Administrators must activate the relevant plugins to enable specific notifications. Users can set personal notification preferences to receive updates appropriate to their roles. Notifications typically inform users about critical actions such as article updates, task assignments, expirations, and approval outcomes, enabling timely responses and maintaining article quality and relevance.

    For expiring articles, notifications include either a detailed list of articles or a link to a comprehensive list, facilitating easy management of article validity.

    Key Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    • Improved knowledge article lifecycle management through timely notifications.
    • Enhanced collaboration among authors, revisers, ownership groups, and subscribers.
    • Greater control over article quality and currency with AQI and expiration alerts.
    • Customization of notification preferences ensures relevant communication without overload.
    • Supports multilingual knowledge management with translation task notifications.

    Reminders enable relevant users to review knowledge articles and complete tasks associated with them.

    By default, the Knowledge Management application includes the following types of email notifications:

    You can decide if you must receive any knowledge notifications by setting notification preferences. For more information, see Set knowledge notification preferences.

    Email notifications for knowledge article feedback tasks

    The email notifications for knowledge article feedback tasks are available when your administrator activates the Knowledge Management Core plugin (com.glideapp.knowledge).

    The following table describes the recipient list of notifications for knowledge article feedback tasks and the associated conditions when a notification is sent.

    Table 1. Recipient list of the email notification for knowledge article feedback tasks
    Notification Condition Recipients
    KM Feedback Task: Commented A comment was added to a user feedback task. User who was assigned the feedback task
    KM Feedback Task: Created A user feedback task was created. User who was assigned the feedback task
    KM Feedback Task: Info from Submitter More information was requested from the submitter of a user feedback task. User who submitted the feedback task
    KM Feedback Task: Reassigned A user feedback task was reassigned. User who was reassigned the feedback task
    KM Feedback Task: Resolution Accepted A resolution described in a user feedback task was accepted. User who was assigned the feedback task
    KM Feedback Task: Resolution Rejected A resolution described in a user feedback task was rejected. User who was assigned the feedback task
    KM Feedback Task: Resolved A user feedback task was set as resolved. User who submitted the feedback task

    Email notifications for knowledge subscriptions

    The email notifications for knowledge subscriptions are available when your administrator activates the Knowledge Management Core plugin (com.glideapp.knowledge). For notifications associated with ownership groups, your administrator must also activate the Knowledge Management Advanced plugin (com.snc.knowledge_advanced).

    The following table describes the recipient list of notifications for knowledge subscriptions and the associated conditions when a notification is sent.

    Table 2. Recipient list of the email notification for knowledge subscriptions
    Notification Condition Recipients
    KM Subscription Group: Article checkout A subscribed knowledge article was checked out
    • Author (if no Ownership group is associated with the article)
    • Ownership group manager and members (if an Ownership group is associated with the article)
    • Revisers
    Note:
    The user who checked out the article does not receive the notification.
    KM Subscription Group: Article commented A comment was added to a subscribed knowledge article
    • Author (if no Ownership group is associated with the article)
    • Ownership group manager and members (if an Ownership group is associated with the article)
    • Revisers
    KM Subscription: Article published A knowledge article was created in a subscribed knowledge base
    • knowledge base owner
    • Knowledge base subscribers
    KM Subscription: Article revised A subscribed knowledge article was edited
    • Knowledge base owner
    • Knowledge article subscribers
    • Author
    • Revisers
    KM Subscription: Article revised in subscribed KB A knowledge article in a subscribed knowledge base was edited.
    • Knowledge base owner
    • Knowledge article subscribers
    • Author
    • Revisers
    • Knowledge base subscriber
    Note:
    An email notification is sent to a reviser of a knowledge article when the article versioning feature is enabled.

    Email notifications for knowledge article approval publishing workflow

    The email notifications for knowledge article approval publishing workflow are available when your administrator activates the Knowledge Management Core plugin (com.glideapp.knowledge).

    The following table describes the recipient list of notifications for the knowledge article approval publishing workflow and the associated conditions when a notification is sent.

    Table 3. Recipient list of the email notification for the knowledge article approval publishing workflow
    Notification Condition Recipients
    KM: Approve article for publishing A knowledge article was approved for publishing with the ownership group feature disabled. Knowledge base owner and managers
    A knowledge article was approved for publishing with the ownership group feature enabled. Ownership group manager and members
    Note:
    In Out-of-Box (OOB) configurations, the approval is sent only to the author.
    KM: Article approved for publish A knowledge article was approved for publication. User (author or reviser) who submitted the article for approval
    KM: Article rejected for publish A knowledge article was rejected for publication. User (author or reviser) who submitted the article for approval
    Note:
    An email notification is sent to a reviser of a knowledge article when the article versioning feature is enabled.

    Email notifications for translation tasks

    The email notifications for translation tasks are available when your administrator activates the Knowledge Management Advanced plugin (com.snc.knowledge_advanced) and I18N: Knowledge Management Internationalization Plugin v2 plugin (com.glideapp.knowledge.i18n2). The 18N: Internationalization plugin (com.glide.i18n) activates the I18N: Knowledge Management Internationalization Plugin v2 plugin.

    The following table describes the recipient list of notifications for translation tasks on knowledge articles and the associated conditions when a notification is sent.

    Table 4. Recipient list of the email notification for translation tasks
    Notification Condition Recipients
    KM Translation Task: Assigned to me A translation task was assigned. User who was assigned the translation task
    KM Translation Task: Closed A translation task was closed after the translated version of the knowledge article was published.
    • User who was assigned the translation task
    • User who submitted the translation task

    Email notifications for expiring knowledge articles

    The email notifications for expiring knowledge articles are available when your administrator activates the Knowledge Management Core plugin (com.glideapp.knowledge) and sets the value of the glide.knowman.enable_article_expiry_notification property to true. By default, the property value is set to false.

    Knowledge articles have an expiration date set using the Valid to field when creating the article. Articles do not appear in search results after the Valid to date.

    On the first day of each month, the application sends an email notification to a list of authorized recipients to remind them about articles that are scheduled to expire in the next month. The user can then determine whether to extend the Valid to date to continue providing access to the article.
    Note:
    To extend the Valid to date of a knowledge article, see Edit a knowledge article
    The content of the email notification is determined by the number of articles expiring in the coming month.
    • Up to 10 – The email notification includes a list of article links displayed in a tabular format and arranged in ascending order by their Valid to date. Clicking a link opens the article in ServiceNow AI Platform.
    • More than 10 – The email notification includes a View the list of expiring articles link, which when accessed opens a list in ServiceNow AI Platform of all articles expiring in the next month.

    The following table describes the recipient list of notifications for expiring knowledge articles and the associated conditions when a notification is sent.

    Table 5. Recipient list of the email notification for expiring knowledge articles
    Notification Condition Recipients
    KM: Article Expiry Warning An article is scheduled to expire in the next month with the ownership group feature disabled.
    • Author
    • Knowledge base owner and managers
    • Reviser for the updated and checked-out versions
    An article is scheduled to expire in the next month with the ownership group feature enabled.
    • Author
    • Knowledge base owner and managers
    • Reviser for the updated and checked-out versions
    • Ownership group manager and members
    Note:
    An email notification is sent to a reviser of a knowledge article when the article versioning feature is enabled.

    Email notifications for article quality index (AQI) reviews

    The email notifications for an article quality index review on knowledge articles are available when your administrator activates the Knowledge Management Advanced plugin (com.snc.knowledge_advanced).

    The following table describes the recipient list of notifications for an AQI review on knowledge articles and the associated conditions when a notification is sent.

    Table 6. Recipient list of the email notification for AQI reviews
    Notification Condition Recipients
    KM: AQI on Article An AQI was performed and submitted on a knowledge article with the ownership group feature disabled.

    User (author or reviser) who last updated the article
    KM: AQI on Ownership Group Article An AQI was performed and submitted on a knowledge article with the ownership group feature enabled.
    • User (author or reviser) who last updated the article
    • Ownership group
    Note:
    An email notification is sent to a reviser of a knowledge article when the article versioning feature is enabled.