Knowledge flows

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated August 20, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Knowledge flows

    Knowledge flows in ServiceNow's Knowledge Management Zurich release control the publishing and retirement processes of knowledge articles within a knowledge base. These flows are mandatory fields on the Knowledge Base form and can be either out-of-the-box (OOB) or customized to fit specific publishing and retirement workflows.

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    Key Features

    • Mandatory Flows: The Publish flow and Retire flow must be defined for each knowledge base to manage article lifecycle stages.
    • Approval Workflow: Flows that require approval involve designated approvers, configurable via the getApprovers() function in the KBWorkflow script include.
    • Default Knowledge Flows:
      • Knowledge - Approval Publish: Requests approval from knowledge base managers or ownership groups. Articles move from Draft to In Review, then Published or Scheduled. Rejections keep articles in Draft.
      • Knowledge - Approval Retire: Requests approval before retiring an article. Rejections keep articles Published.
      • Knowledge - Instant Publish: Publishes articles immediately without approval.
      • Knowledge - Instant Retire: Retires articles immediately without approval.
      • Knowledge - Publish and Knowledge - Retire: Basic actions for publishing or retiring articles.
    • Email Notifications: Notifications are sent to approvers and authors during approval flows if the glide.knowman.enableapprovalnotification property is enabled (default true). Only active users receive notifications.
    • Ownership Groups: When enabled, approval notifications are sent to group members rather than just knowledge base managers.
    • Retired Articles: Only administrators and knowledge administrators can view retired articles, and they can republish these if needed. Retiring parent articles does not automatically retire translated child articles.

    Practical Implications for ServiceNow Customers

    This functionality enables customers to tailor knowledge publishing and retirement processes to their organization’s requirements, ensuring proper review and control. Approval flows help maintain content quality, while instant flows allow rapid updates when needed. Email notifications keep stakeholders informed, improving communication around content lifecycle events. Administrators have control over visibility and reuse of retired articles, aiding content governance.

    The publishing and retirement processes for a knowledge article are controlled by flows defined for the knowledge base that the article belongs to.

    Beginning with Zurich, Knowledge Flow is available to all new users of Knowledge Management.

    The Publish flow and Retire flow fields are mandatory in the Knowledge Base form.

    You can use the Out-of-Box (OOB) flows, or create your own to define custom publishing and retirement processes for different types of knowledge. For more information see,

    For the flows that require approval, you can configure which users can approve or reject by editing the getApprovers() function in the KBWorkflow script include.

    You cannot delete the approval records for knowledge flows. You can only approve or reject the records.

    Table 1. Default knowledge flows
    Flow Description
    Knowledge - Approval Publish Requests approval from a manager of the knowledge base. Articles in approval are In Review state before moving to Published state once approved or to Scheduled for publish if set to publish later. If the manager rejects the request, the flow is canceled and the article remains in Draft state.

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

    If ownership groups is not enabled, email notifications with a link to the article are sent to knowledge base managers for approval.

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

    To turn on 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. The flow is canceled and the article remains in the published state if any manager rejects the request.

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

    If ownership groups is not enabled, email notifications with a link to the article are sent to 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 Action for publishing an article.
    Knowledge - Retire Knowledge Action for retiring an article.
    Note:
    • Only administrators and knowledge administrators can view the retired knowledge articles. To reuse a retired article, administrators and knowledge administrators can republish the article. For more information, see Republish a retired article.
    • An article and its translations have a parent-child relationship. Retiring a parent article does not automatically retire all its translated child articles.

    Email notifications for approval flows

    You can send email notifications for approval flows.
    • Notify approvers about knowledge articles submitted for their approvals.
    • Notify authors about the approval status of their knowledge articles.
    To send email notifications for approval flows, enable the Send notification to approvers and authors in article approval flow property (glide.knowman.enable_approval_notification). The property is enabled by default. If the glide.knowman.enable_approval_notification property is not available, an administrator can create the property and set its value to true. For more information, see Knowledge Management properties.