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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 service issues that are reported by your customers. You can use KB articles to:

  • Search by keyword across multiple KB articles.

    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.

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 before you click one of these action buttons.

  • New - Creates a new KB article.
  • View - Displays a KB article without allowing any edit changes. Selected users may only have access to view a KB article using this option.
  • Edit - Edits a selected KB article.
  • Delete - Deletes one or more selected KB article.
  • Copy an Article - Copies a selected KB article to a target service desk or knowledge base desk. Options include linking source and target items, changing field values and either including notes or converting notes into a consolidated description in the target desk.
  • 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.
  • 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.

Filtering

There are multiple methods for filtering the rows displayed in the Tickets table, Knowledge Base table, or Search All table. All methods of filtering can be combined at any time. Clicking Reset removes all filtering.

  • Search - Enter a search string in the Search edit box. Only rows containing the search string in the Summary, Description or Notes fields are displayed.
  • Column Options - This table supports selectable columns, column sorting, column filtering and flexible columns widths.
  • Named Filters - Named filters are "fixed" combinations of filtering criteria, based on many of the columns you see in the table. They are selected using the View drop-down list. Named filters are created, edited, saved, shared and deleted by users. Additional options include:
    • This field can be a column filter - This extra checkbox displays for many of the filter columns shown in the Edit a Filter dialog.
      • If checked, the filter selections you've defined for that column can be changed dynamically within the table, just like any other column not specified by the named filter.
      • If blank, the filter selections you've defined for that column cannot be modified in the table. The column filter option doesn't display for this column in the table, preventing you from making any changes to it. Leaving this checkbox blank reduces confusion, since you can be confident that the named filter settings have not been modified by any additional column filtering you may have performed.
    • Similar to/Like - The text entered occurs anywhere within the target cell. Entering wild cards characters is not necessary. For example, filtering a column by text that contains age will display records with the following cells values: age, agent, storage, etc.
    • Not Like/Is Not Assigned - The text entered occurs nowhere within the target cell.
    • Assignees and Pools - Filtering by assignee includes all pools an assignee is a member of. Filtering by Any Assignee shows all tickets assigned to either an assignee or pool. Filtering by No Assignee shows unassigned tickets.
    • Sharing - See Sharing User-Owned Objects.

Paging and Table Counters

  • Page Select - When more rows of data are selected than can be displayed on a single page, click the and buttons to display the previous and next page. The drop-down list alphabetically lists the first record of each page of data using the sort order of the selected column on that page.
  • Selected - The number of rows selected in the table. Includes selections on multiple pages.
  • Viewing - The number of rows in the current page and the total number of rows in all pages.

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.

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 > Definitions 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 Preferences by Role or the Definitions > Access > Roles tab.

Creating a Knowledge Base Article from an Existing Ticket

The fastest way of creating a KB article is to create it from an existing ticket. In Service Desk > Tickets you can create a KB article using two action buttons:

  • Copy - Click Copy at the top of the Tickets table to display the Copy Ticket dialog box. This dialog enables you to copy a ticket to a new ticket or a KB article.
  • Create a KB Article - Click Create a KB Article while editing an existing ticket. This button enable you to copy a ticket only to a KB article.

The two dialogs provide exactly the same options, except the Create a KB Article dialog restricts you to only creating KB articles.

  • Target Service Desk - Select the target knowledge base definition you want to use.
  • Target Standard Field Values - Leave the target standard field values unspecified, if the KB article you're creating doesn't have a corresponding standard field value defined. Otherwise you can select a new value to assign to the KB article you're creating.
  • Copy Notes - You can specify how notes are copied to the KB article as follows:
    • Don't Copy Notes - Use this option if the existing description text is all you need to create the KB article.
    • Copy Notes - Use this option if you want to add notes to the KB article.

      Note: The Knowledge Base Article.xml editing template doesn't display notes. So only use this option if your KB article uses the the Default Ticket Entry.xml editing template.

    • Copy Notes into Description - Use this option if some of the content you want to add to the description of the KB article is contained in the notes of the ticket. You should expect to edit the description in the created KB article to remove irrelevant content copied from the notes.
  • Link Ticket - If checked, creates related links in both the source ticket and the KB article you're creating. In the KB article, this identifies the originating ticket. In the ticket, the reference to the KB article displays.