Knowledge Base

Service Desk > Operations > Knowledge Base

The Knowledge Base table comprises all KB articles you have access to view. KB articles represent known solutions to issues that are reported by your customers.

• Search by keyword across multiple KB articles, similar to searching for tickets in the Tickets table.

  Note: Search All enables you to search by keyword across all tickets and all KB articles.

• Associate multiple tickets with the same KB article, enabling you to manage tickets using a shared problem/solution business process. If a problem is shared by many customers but the solution is still in development, once you have the solution, you can contact each customer affected by the problem by identifying all the customer tickets related to the KB article.
• Create a KB article by copying it from a ticket. This is the fastest way to create a KB article because the originating ticket often contains much of the detailed information required by the KB article.
• Create a KB article manually, in the same way you create a ticket.
• Ensure knowledge base articles display in Live Connect and Portal Access. See Integrating Service Desk, Live Connect, Portal Access.

Knowledge Base Table

All KB articles you are authorized to see are displayed as a list of rows in a table. The following actions are provided to manage KB articles. In some cases you have to select one or more rows to enable an action button.

• New - Creates a new KB article. Similar to adding / editing a ticket.
• View - Displays a KB article without allowing any edit changes. Selected users may only have access to view a KB article, depending on their role.
• Edit - Edits a selected KB article. Similar to adding / editing a ticket.
• Delete - Deletes one or more selected KB articles.
• Copy an Article - Copies a selected KB article to another KB article. See Copying Tickets and KB Articles.
• Link - Links two or more selected items. Linked items display in the Related Tickets tab of a ticket or KB articles. Use Search All to select and link items from different desks.
• Unlink Related Items - Unlinks items related to a single selected item.
• Unlock Articles - Unlocks selected items. An item locks each time you edit it, preventing other users from editing it at the same time. If a user has left an item open and you need to maintain it, you can unlock the item to gain access to it. Doing so prevents the user who originally opened the item from saving his or her changes.
• Re-Open - Changes an End-stage (for example, Closed) article to a Begin-stage (for example, New) article.
• Print an Article - Prints a single KB article in PDF, Excel, or HTML output, with or without notes.

Knowledge Base Definitions

Service Desk comes with a knowledge base definition already created for you called KnowledgeBase. You can begin to add KB articles immediately or create a new desk that matches your preferences. See Setup Knowledge Base.

Knowledge Base Templates

Two types of templates apply to knowledge base desks and KB articles.

• Definition Template - Blank KnowledgeBase.xml - This template is mandatory to create a new KB article definition. This is the template the KnowledgeBase definition is created from. A knowledge base definition supports the creation of KB articles rather than tickets. Once created, this definition can only be selected using the Knowledge Base function. It isn't selectable using the Tickets function. The word Blank in the xml filename indicates that standard field values are not populated when you create a definition based on this template. See Service Desk > Desk Definition for detailed instructions about editing a definition.
• Editing Template - Knowledge Base Article.xml - An editing template determines the layout of fields in the ticket editor or KB article editor. The default KnowledgeBase definition uses an editing template called Knowledge Base Article.xml that hides many of the standard ticket fields that are visible when you edit a ticket. The assumption is that a KB article doesn't require users to maintain all these extra fields. The editing template used to edit a ticket or KB article is optional. For example, you can use the Default Ticket Entry.xml to display a KB article editor that looks just like the standard ticket editor. Editing templates are assigned to desks using Role Preferences or the Desk Definition > Access > Roles tab.