Enabling end users to request services from knowledge articles

As a catalog administrator, you can the configure relevant services or service bundles to be displayed with knowledge articles. You can configure multiple services to be displayed with one knowledge article. You can also configure one service to be displayed with multiple knowledge articles.

End users can easily request the related services, including bundled services, in the context of the knowledge article, which helps in the following ways:

Request for a service from the knowledge article page.
Saves time by not having to search through multiple services.

Required license

DWP Advanced icon.png BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced

Example of configuring related services with knowledge articles

Example of the required configurations

The BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog administrator wants to display the Request to configure MS Office 365 on Android and iOS devices service with the Configuring MS Office 365 knowledge article, created in BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Management.

As a knowledge author in BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Management, you fill out the category fields when you create or update the knowledge article. The category values are populated as metadata fields in BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround. After articles are synchronized with BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround, the catergories are populated as BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround tags in the following format:

Operational Tier 1=Software
Operational Tier 2=Application
Product Category=Microsoft

If the knowledge article is in BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Management or BMC Helix Business Workflows, create or update the article metadata (categories, in this example) before you synchronize with BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround.

If the knowledge article is already synchronized or if an article is created in BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround, access the article from BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround UI and add the tags in the correct format.

As the Catalog administrator, you associate the Request to configure MS Office 365 on Android and iOS devices service to the following knowledge article categories:

Operational Tier 1=Software
Operational Tier 2=Application
Product Category=Microsoft

Important

When a service is associated with multiple knowledge articles, the system displays the services by using the following rule:

If the values are selected from multiple categories such as Software, Application, Microsoft, then the AND function is applied and services that are associated with all categories are displayed.
If the values are selected from the same category such as Country=India, Country=USA, Country=France, then the OR function is applied and services with any of the values are displayed.

Result of the configuration

Britney is a new employee who wants to configure Microsoft Office 365 Teams on her personal mobile device. She searches the Catalog and finds the Configuring MS Office 365 knowledge article. The article also has the Request to configure MS Office 365 on Android and iOS devices service associated with it.

Britney requests the service Request to configure MS Office 365 on Android and iOS devices in the context of the knowledge article.

Before you begin

Make sure that you have completed the following prerequisites:

Product	Description
Integrate BMC Helix Digital Workplace with BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround	Integrating-BMC-Helix-Knowledge-Management-by-ComAround-with-BMC-Helix-Digital-Workplace
Periodically synchronize articles from BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Management or BMC Helix Business Workflows with BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround	Synchronizing BMC applications with BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround
(If you have not synchronized articles from BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Management to BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround) BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround UI	Make sure you have one of the the following roles to add tags to the knowledge article Knowledge Publisher Knowledge Coach Knowledge Manager
(If you have not synchronized articles from BMC Helix Business Workflows to BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround) BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround UI	Make sure you have one of the the following roles to add tags to the knowledge article: Knowledge Publisher Knowledge Coach Knowledge Manager

Workflow to enable end users to request services from knowledge articles

Task	Role	Product	Action	Description	Reference
1	Knowledge author	BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Management or BMC Helix Business Workflows	Fill out the knowledge article metadata when you create or update a knowledge article.	The field values are populated as BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround knowledge article in the following format: Field = value Examples: Company=Petramco Site=Boston Support Center Important: If an article does not have tags in this format, the Category is listed in the Other menu when associating a service.	Improving findability through categorization in the BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Management online documentation. Creating and publishing knowledge articles in the BMC Helix Business Workflows online documentation.
2	Administrator	BMC Helix Digital Workplace	Integrate BMC Helix Digital Workplace with BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround	Complete all the integration steps.	Integrating-BMC-Helix-Knowledge-Management-by-ComAround-with-BMC-Helix-Digital-Workplace
(Optional) 3	Administrator Knowledge Publisher Knowledge Coach Knowledge Manager	BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround	If you did not synchronize knowledge articles to create tags in BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround	Manually add tags to the knowledge articles in the following format: Category = value Examples: Company=Petramco Region=EMEA Important: If an article does not have tags in this format, the Category is listed in the Other menu in BMC Helix Digital Workplace when associating a service.	Tags in the BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround online documentation.
4	Catalog administrator	BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog	Specify the default BMC Helix Innovation Studio connector (formerly known as BMC Helix Platform) with the same BMC Helix Innovation Studio instance on which BMC Helix Knowledge Management by ComAround is configured.	If only one BMC Helix Innovation Studio connector is configured, it is considered as the default connector. If multiple BMC Helix Innovation Studio connectors are configured, the first connector is applied by default. You can override the default by specifying the default connector.	To specify the default BMC Helix Innovation Studio connector
5	Catalog administrator	BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog	Associate the services with the same categories that you added the tags to the knowledge articles earlier.	On the Knowledge Article Association page, select the Knowledge Categories for each service so that the services are listed as Related items with the knowledge articles. For example, if you added the Company=Petramco tag to the knowledge article, select Company = Petramco in the Knowledge article association. Example of associating services with knowledge article categories	Adding-and-updating-services

Task 4: To specify the default BMC Helix Innovation Studio connector

Log in to BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog.
Click Application Settings > Default Connections.
From the list of connectors in Knowledge association, select the BMC Helix Innovation Studio connector (formerly known as BMC Helix Platform) that you want to specify as the default connector.

The following image shows an example of specifying the default connector:

Default Helix Platform connector.png

Result

After you complete all the tasks listed in the above table, the relevant services should be displayed as Related Items with the knowledge articles, as shown in the following example:

Services displayed with an article.jpg

If the end user immediately submits a service request from the knowledge article, a comment is added to the request with the knowledge article link, as shown in the following image:

comment in service created from article.jpg

If the end user saves and closes the service request or adds the request in cart and then submits the request, the comment and the knowledge article link is not added.