Attach and share article guidance

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 8 minutes to read
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    Summary of Attach and share article guidance

    The Attach and share article guidance in ServiceNow Australia release helps customer service agents by recommending relevant knowledge articles based on the case short description. Agents can view these articles in a card or detailed view and share selected articles via comments, work notes, or email. This guidance streamlines providing customers with helpful information directly from the case workspace.

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    Key Features

    • Article Recommendations: Articles are suggested based on case text relevancy and displayed with scores indicating match quality.
    • Card and Detail Views: Agents can quickly scan article summaries in cards or read full content in the detail view.
    • Sharing Actions: Primary and secondary actions allow agents to attach articles and add links in comments, work notes, or emails. Actions are configurable by system administrators.
    • Dialog Experiences: Two interaction modes exist—modeless dialogs allow simultaneous interaction with the case page, while modals require completing the sharing action before proceeding. Administrators configure which experience applies per record page.
    • Public vs. Private Articles: Articles with a lock icon are private and cannot be shared with customers; sharing options are limited accordingly. Public articles can be shared freely.
    • Extension Point for Customization: The KnowledgeGuidanceUserResolver extension point enables business units to customize how primary requesters and sharing actions are determined based on case context.

    Sharing Actions Explained

    • Attach and Add Link in Comment: Attaches the article to the case and inserts a link in a comment visible externally. Modal experience requires posting the comment before continuing; modeless allows multitasking.
    • Add Link in Work Note: Attaches the article and inserts a link in a private work note. Behavior differs between modal and modeless dialogs as above.
    • Attach and Add Link in Email: Attaches the article to the case and inserts a link in an email body. Email templates may auto-fill fields. Modal and modeless dialog behavior varies similarly.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    • Enhances agent productivity by providing contextual knowledge recommendations directly within the case workspace.
    • Improves customer communication by enabling easy sharing of relevant knowledge articles through multiple channels.
    • Supports compliance and security by differentiating between public and private knowledge articles and limiting sharing accordingly.
    • Offers flexible user experience with configurable dialog modes aligned to workspace design and agent preferences.
    • Allows customization to align article sharing logic with organizational structures and case scenarios via extension points.

    The Attach and share article guidance recommends relevant knowledge articles to customer service agents and enables them to share the selected articles in comments, work notes, or email.

    The Attach and share article guidance recommends relevant knowledge articles based on the text in the case short description. Agents can view the recommended articles and share a selected article with the customer.

    The agent can view the knowledge articles in a card format in the contextual side panel or expand a selected card to see an article in a detail view. The card view provides a condensed view of articles for quick scanning. The detail view provides the full content of the selected article for further reading.

    Each card contains a primary action. The default primary action is Attach and add link in comment. Secondary actions are available in the More actions menu in the upper right corner of the card:The same primary and secondary actions are available in the expanded detail view. The system administrator can configure the primary and secondary actions in the Recommended action specific configuration property. For more information, see Configuring guidances in UI Builder.

    The relevancy score displays on the Attach and share article guidance in the Search tab of the Recommended Actions contextual side panel. It indicates how well a search result matches the agent’s query.

    Modal and modeless dialog experiences

    The agent can share the article in a comment, a work note, or an email using the primary and secondary actions. Two different experiences are available for this guidance depending on the record page you're using in the CSM Configurable Workspace:
    • Modeless dialogs: This experience is available for record pages that support modeless dialogs (for example, the Front-line case page). Modeless dialogs are windows that overlay the main window content. Agents can move modeless dialogs around the window so they can interact with the window content and overlay content at the same time.
    • Modals: This experience is available for record pages that support modals (for example, the CSM default record page). With modals, agents must complete the action within a modal before continuing to interact with the window content, which is the default experience.

    The system administrator can configure the modal and modeless dialog experiences in the Recommended Action Specific Configuration property. For more information, see Configuring guidances in UI Builder.

    If a record page supports the modeless dialog experience, selecting an action on a guidance card opens the corresponding modeless dialog. If a record page does not support the modeless dialog experience, the guidance uses the modal experience.
    Note:
    The result of guidance actions is the same in the modeless dialog and modal experiences, but when the actions are completed differs.

    Public and private knowledge articles recommendations for case records

    Some knowledge articles that appear in the search results display a lock icon in the upper left corner. The presence or absence of the lock icon determines the audience for the article and how an agent can share the article.

    The KnowledgeGuidanceUserResolver extension point is shipped with the base system. This extension point allows business units (BUs) to return the requester and primary action based on their logic by creating the implementation in this extension point. You can create an implementation by selecting the Create Implementation link in the KnowledgeGuidanceUserResolver extension point. The CSMKnowledgeGuidanceUserResolver implementation for the Case table and its extended tables is shipped with the base system. This implementation identifies the primary requesters for a case record based on the Contact, Partner Contact, Consumer and Internal user fields in the Case table. The primary action is determined based on the channel type of the case record.

    Note:
    The Internal user field is checked only when the Service Organization (com.snc.service_organization) plugin is installed.
    Lock icon
    Agents can’t share locked articles with customers as the customers do not have access to these locked article. The Attach and add link in email and Attach and add link in comment actions are not available when a lock icon is present on a guidance card. The following table shows the primary and secondary actions in preview and detail view on the guidance card:
    Table 1. Primary and secondary actions in preview and detail view on the guidance card
    Action type Description
    Preview
    Primary actions The default primary action is Read article.
    Secondary actions
    • Share in work notes
    • Copy Link
    Detail view
    Primary actions The default primary action on the guidance card is Read article in full view.
    Secondary actions
    • Share in work note
    • Copy Link
    • Flag article
    • Mark as helpful
    No lock icon
    Agents can share these articles with both customers and internal users. The following table shows the primary and secondary actions in preview and detail view on the guidance card:
    Table 2. Primary and secondary actions in preview and detail view on the guidance card
    Action type Description
    Preview
    Primary action The default primary action by channel:
    Secondary actions (available in the more options menu)
    • Read article
    • Attach and share in work notes
    • Share in email
    • Flag article
    • Mark as helpful
    Detail view
    Primary action The default primary action:
    Secondary actions (available in the more options menu)
    • Read article
    • Attach and share in work notes
    • Share in email
    • Flag article
    • Mark as helpful
    • Read article in full view

    Attach and add links in comments

    Use this action to attach a knowledge article to a case record and share the link in the activity stream. The behavior of the action depends on the modal or modeless dialog experience.

    Experience Description
    Modal This action does the following:
    • Opens the Compose a comment modal.
    • Inserts the article link in the Comments field.
    The agent can add information to the Comments field and select Post Comments.
    • The knowledge article is attached to the case record.
    • The activity stream is updated with the article attachment (as an internal post).
    • The comment and the link are posted to the activity stream (as an external post).
    • The guidance is marked as complete and moved to the Recommended Actions History tab.
    This action is available as the primary action on the knowledge article card.
    Note:
    This guidance is available by default.
    Modeless dialog This action does the following:
    • Attaches the article to the case record. The article is available in the Attached Knowledge related list.
    • Updates the activity stream with the article attachment as an internal post.
    • Marks the guidance as complete and moves it to the History tab.
    • Opens the Compose a comment modeless dialog.
    • Inserts the article link in the Comments field.
    The agent can add information to the Comments field and select Post Comments. The comment is posted to the activity stream as an external post.

    Add link in work note

    Use this action to attach a knowledge article to a case record in the work notes. The behavior of the action depends on the modal or modeless dialog experience.

    Experience Description
    Modal This action does the following:
    • Opens the Compose a work note modal.
    • Inserts the article link in the Work notes field.
    The agent can add information to the Work notes field and select Post work notes (private) to post the work note and the link to the activity stream as an internal post.
    • The activity stream is updated with the article attachment as an internal post.
    • The guidance is marked as complete and moved to the Recommended Actions History tab.
    This action is available as a secondary action in the More actions menu.
    Note:
    This guidance is available by default.
    Modeless dialog This action does the following:
    • Opens the Compose a work note modeless dialog.
    • Inserts the article link in the Work notes field.

    The agent can add information to the Work notes field and select Post work notes (private) to post the work note and the link to the activity stream as an internal post. The guidance is marked as complete and moved to the History tab.

    Attach and add links in emails

    Use this action to attach a knowledge article to a case record and share the link in an email. The behavior of the action depends on the modal or modeless dialog experience.

    Experience Description
    Modal This action does the following:
    • Opens the Email compose modal.
    • Inserts the article link in the body of the email.
    • If available, an email template auto-fills modal fields.
    The agent can add information to the email and select Send email.
    • The email is sent.
    • The knowledge article is attached to the case and is available in the Attached Knowledge related list.
    • The activity stream is updated with the article attachment (as an internal post).
    • The guidance is marked as complete and moved to the Recommended Actions History tab.
    This action is available as a secondary action in the More actions menu.
    Note:
    This guidance is available by default with the modeless dialog experience. For the modal experience, it must be configured by the system administrator.
    Modeless dialog This action does the following:
    • Attaches the article to the case record. The article is available in the Attached Knowledge related list.
    • Updates the activity stream with the article attachment as an internal post.
    • Marks the guidance as complete and moves it to the History tab.
    • Opens the Email compose modeless dialog.
    • Inserts the article link in the body of the email.
    • If available, an email template auto-fills email fields.

    The agent can add information to the email and select Send email.

    More actions menu

    The More actions menu on a guidance card includes several actions in addition to Add link in work notes and Attach and add link in email.

    In the card view, these actions include:
    • Read article
    • Copy link
    In the detail view, these actions include:
    • Read article in full view
    • Copy link
    • Mark article as helpful
    • Flag article