Knowledge article search

The Quick Case feature in BMC Helix Business Workflows searches and suggests knowledge articles that might help the agent to resolve a case. You can review summaries of these articles while the case requester is still on the phone. If you find an article that could resolve the issue, you can immediately walk the requester through the resolution and then verify with them that the case is resolved. For more information, see Quick case.

BMC Helix Business Workflows users can also search for knowledge articles relevant to a case from the Case console or the Create Case page. You can run a search at different levels. A simple search enables you to quickly search for knowledge articles that match the search input text. The advanced search provides options to narrow down the results by applying filters to results displayed after simple search.

Simple search

When creating a case, the Summary text box is a mandatory field on the Create Case page. After the case is saved, the Summary text box is the input for simple search for knowledge articles. The search results are displayed on the Resources tab of the case. You can pin or unpin knowledge articles from the search results to the case. The pinned knowledge articles are displayed at the top of the search results.

Out-of-the-box, the Resources tab only displays published articles. However, an administrator or a case business analyst with the Knowledge Coach functional role can modify the status of articles that should be displayed.

You cannot filter the search results in a simple search. To apply filters, you must perform an advanced search.

Advanced search

Agents can use the advanced search option to filter the results of a simple search or to run a new search by using filters. The advanced search enables agents to narrow down the search criteria by applying filters. This search option is available on case, knowledge article, and quick case.

To perform an advanced search, click Advanced search options and select the filters. The following filters are available out-of-the-box:

Status
Knowledge Set
Site
Operational Category Tier 1
Region

The administrator or a case business analyst with the Knowledge Coach functional role can modify the out-of-the-box filters as per the business requirements.

Note

When you use the Status filter to search for articles, the articles with the specified status are added to the list of knowledge articles that are displayed in the simple search.

You can also pin an article to associate it with a case. The pinned knowledge articles are displayed at the top of the search results after you reload the screen.

For more information, see Modifying simple and advanced search for knowledge articles.

Search tuning parameters

BMC Helix Business Workflows provides enhanced search functionality that is based on search tuning parameters. The parameters ensure that when agents search for a knowledge article by using keywords from a record, they get articles with which the keywords match the best.

The following search tuning parameters enhance the search functionality:

Weights—Provide relevance to fields in different records such as cases, case templates, knowledge articles, and knowledge article templates. From a record, when an agent searches for a knowledge article with a keyword, the search functionality looks for the matching keyword in the fields of that record. Article with a higher weight field with which the keyword matches, is displayed at the top.
The weights are mapped with Title and Keyword fields in the records. Following are the available range of weights for these fields:
- Title Weight Range—4-10
- Keyword Weight Range—2-7 or 8
Out-of-the-box, the Title field has a weight 4.0 and Keyword field has weight 2.0. The administrator or a case business analyst with the Knowledge Coach functional role can modify the weights for the fields as required.
Example

Consider the following example:
From a case Applying for benefit policy, a case agent searches for an article with keywords as benefit policies. There are two articles, Article A and Article B, that are related to this case. In Article A, the keyword benefit policies matches with the Title field. In Article B, the keyword benefit policies matches with the Keyword field. Because the title field has a weight 4.0, the Article A is displayed at the top in the search results.

Exclude list—Consists of certain terms that the search ignores to narrow down the results. For example, an agent searches for an article with keywords issues with the outlook application and the exclude list contains the as an exclude term. The search ignores the exclude term the, and displays articles with only issues with outlook application. BMC Helix Business Workflows provides an out-of-the-box exclude list that the administrator or a case business analyst with the Knowledge Coach functional role can modify.

For more information about the search tuning parameters, see Modifying search tuning parameters.

Searchable fields on knowledge articles

When a knowledge article is published, the contents of the article are read-only except the fields in the Knowledge Metadata section. The following fields in the Knowledge Metadata section are used for performing knowledge search:

GUID
Operational Category
Knowledge set
Article status
Title
Content ID
External use -Yes/ No
Keywords
RTF fields on the knowledge article
Attachment fields
Region

Special characters for Full Text Search

You can include the following special characters to enhance your simple and advanced search:

Special character	Description	Example search string	Example results
" (double quotation marks)	Performs an exact search on the word or phrase enclosed in double quotation marks (").	"firewall" block In this example, exact search is performed for the word firewall. Search for the word block is extended to its word stems, such as "ed", "s", and "ing."	firewall blocked her access firewall blocking my access firewall blocks access firewall will block access firewall is not working firewall will block access
, (comma)	Finds knowledge articles that contain any of the specified words separated by a comma.	firewall, blocking "firewall, blocking"	firewall blocks access firewall will block access firewall is not working try blocking his access firewall blocking access firewall blocking my access
% (percent symbol)	Finds knowledge articles that contain any of the specified word in the wildcard. Note: You do not need to use a wildcard to extend the search for word stems, such as "ed", "s", and "ing."	%fire%	backfire fire firewall
AND, OR, NOT, AND NOT (Boolean operators)	Performs search by interpreting the words as a Boolean search.	firewall AND blocking firewall OR blocking firewall NOT blocking	firewall blocks access firewall will block access firewall is not working try blocking his access firewall is not working
() (Boolean operator for group expressions)	Indicates an enclosed component within a Boolean search phrase.	firewall AND (block, allow)	firewall blocking access set up firewall to allow access