Assigning knowledge workflows to an OT knowledge base

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Assigning Knowledge Workflows to an OT Knowledge Base

    This guide outlines how to assign various Knowledge Management workflows to Operational Technology (OT) knowledge bases for publishing and retiring processes. Users can utilize default workflows tailored for OT Knowledge Management to enhance operational efficiency.

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    Key Features

    • Knowledge - Approval Publish: Requires manager approval before publishing articles. If approved, articles transition from In Review to Published or Scheduled states. Notifications are sent based on ownership group settings.
    • Knowledge - Approval Retire: Similar to the publish workflow, this requires approval to retire articles. If rejected, articles remain in the Published state.
    • Knowledge - Instant Publish: Allows immediate publication of draft articles without requiring approval.
    • Knowledge - Instant Retire: Enables immediate retirement of published articles without needing approval.
    • Knowledge - Publish Knowledge and Knowledge - Retire Knowledge: Subflows available for custom workflow definitions to transition articles to Published or Retired states.
    • Email Notifications: Notifications can be configured for approvers and authors regarding approval statuses, with options to enable or disable based on user settings.

    Key Outcomes

    By effectively assigning and configuring these workflows, ServiceNow customers can streamline the management of knowledge articles, ensuring timely approvals and enhanced communication among stakeholders. Customers can expect a more organized publishing and retiring process, which contributes to maintaining the relevance and accuracy of the knowledge base.

    You can assign different Knowledge Management workflows to each Operational Technology (OT) knowledge base for the publishing and retiring processes.

    Knowledge workflow overview

    You can use the default Knowledge Management workflows in the following table for Operational Technology Knowledge Management and apply them to OT knowledge bases.
    Note:
    For the workflows that require approval, you can configure which users can approve or reject by editing the getApprovers() function in the KBWorkflow script include.
    Table 1. Default Knowledge Management workflows
    Workflow Description
    Knowledge - Approval Publish Requests approval from a manager of the knowledge base. Articles in approval have a state of In Review before moving to a Published state after approval. If they're set to publish later, they’re moved to a Scheduled state. If the manager rejects the request, the workflow is canceled and the article remains in the Draft state.

    If theownership groups option is enabled, email notifications with a link to the article are sent to the ownership group members for approval.

    If the ownership groups option isn't enabled, email notifications with a link to the article are sent to the knowledge base managers for approval.

    A notification is also sent to the authors or the revisers of the articles to inform them that their article has been approved or rejected.

    To turn on the approval email notifications, set the glide.knowman.enable_approval_notification property to true.

    Note:
    Only the active user receives the notifications.
    Knowledge - Approval Retire Requests approval from a manager of the knowledge base before moving the article to the retired state. If any manager rejects the request, the workflow is canceled and the article remains in the Published state.

    If the ownership groups option is enabled, email notifications with a link to the article are sent to the ownership group members for approval.

    If the ownership groups option isn’t enabled, email notifications with a link to the article are sent to the knowledge base managers for approval.
    Knowledge - Instant Publish Immediately publishes a draft article without requiring an approval, or publishes on the scheduled publish date if set to publish later.
    Knowledge - Instant Retire Immediately retires a published article without requiring an approval.
    Knowledge - Publish Knowledge Subflow that moves the knowledge article to the Published state. You can use this subflow when defining your own workflow.
    Knowledge - Retire Knowledge Subflow that moves the knowledge article to the Retired state. You can use this subflow when defining your own workflow.

    Email notifications for approval workflows

    You can send email notifications for approval workflows.
    • Notify approvers about the knowledge articles submitted for their approvals.
    • Notify authors about the approval status of their knowledge articles
    To send email notifications for approval workflows, enable the Send notification to approvers and authors in article approval workflow property (glide.knowman.enable_approval_notification). Beginning with the New York release, the property is enabled by default. Existing customers on release versions prior to the New York release can enable this property to send email notifications. Disable any custom notifications for article approvals before enabling this property. If the glide.knowman.enable_approval_notification property isn’t available, an administrator can create the property and set its value to true. For more information, see Knowledge Management properties.