BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Management overview
BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Managementis a framework for creating, publishing, reviewing, and searching IT knowledge articles, to provide service desk analysts with a knowledge base of easy-to-find solutions, and give users self-service search options to help them resolve issues on their own.
The Consortium for Service Innovation which created and maintains Knowledge-Centered Service (KCS), shares best practices for capturing, structuring, evolving, and reusing knowledge. BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Managementleverages these best practices to improve service levels by helping organizations to maintain what their employees, partners, and customers know and reuse this knowledge to gain value.
Quick overview
Using BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Managementprovides several benefits:
Easy to create and maintain
Knowledge, typically comprised of different types and formats, is stored as separate knowledge articles contained in a knowledge-based repository. Storing knowledge articles in a repository allows control and life cycle management. Organizations that are just starting to build their own proprietary content, require examples of content, or want to expand the organizational knowledge base can use the out-of-the-box templates for immediate use.
The authoring process enables authorized users to use rich HTML authoring and extensive editing tools to create and maintain interactive, template-based knowledge articles and manage the knowledge article life cycle within a defined sequence of stages.
Powerful index and search capabilities
Powerful index and search capabilities across multiple sources, including incidents, problems, and known errors, enable users to search the repository and locate the requested knowledge. The robust search engine allows users to search for solutions using natural language or Boolean searches. All users can perform a search and view results from withinAction Request System, in accordance with their permissions. Users that have one of the Knowledge User roles can also perform a search from within BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Management. When an appropriate article is not found in the knowledge base, users with the appropriate permissions can create an article as required.
Common foundation with IT Service Management
BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Managementshares a common foundation with BMC Helix ITSMand BMC Service Request Management, as all of these applications are built on Action Request System. BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Managementleverages foundational elements, such as notification and email, of the integration platform to simplify and reduce management costs.
Other benefits
- Helps IT and customer service personnel and other service providers to guarantee a quick and accurate response when solving problems.
- Allows organizations to provide users with the option to perform ad ad hoc search for knowledge by themselves.
- Provides a means to create knowledge goals and monitor articles through reports.
Product features
Using BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Managementprovides several features:
Single and centralized platform
Knowledge that can be captured and structured for reuse is a key asset of support organizations and departments. BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Managementprovides a single, centralized, self-service knowledge base for creating, organizing, categorizing, using, updating, and managing structured, consolidated knowledge.
Access control
Different user roles provide different levels of authority in the system. Knowledge accessibility, page elements, and tasks are restricted according to user permissions.
Different template for different articles
Knowledge is stored in units known as knowledge articles (articles). Each article captures an issue and, using the appropriate predefined template, documents the experience of solving a problem, providing referential information, describing a process, or answering a question.
Improvements of article
Once captured, article content can evolve and be improved over time, based on user demand and usage. An article's maintenance might continue indefinitely as the knowledge evolves. Users can submit feedback that might include suggestions for updating or improving the article, rate its content, and indicate whether or not the article was useful. Content that becomes irrelevant, misleading, inaccurate, or inappropriate can be revised, or the entire article can be retired and made inaccessible to users.
Update notification
Users can track changes made to articles even when they are not involved in the workflow, by selecting specific articles or by defining rules (watch list). When these articles are changed, a notification is sent.
Relating an article with another article
Articles can be related to one another when their content is related. Thus it is possible, for example, to add a link from an article that contains information about resolving an issue to another article that contains referential information.
Sending knowledge articles by e-mail
The Email System enables Support staff to send a link to a knowledge article via e-mail to a user who requires help with an issue or for information purposes, and to, optionally, email information about the article. You can send an e-mail message to any valid e-mail address. In addition, the Email Log enables you to view the email messages that you sent through the Email System. When you select the Email Log tab, the Email Information pane remains visible.
Product documentation
Find documentation related to your goal.
| User goal | Where to find information |
|---|---|
| Create and publish knowledge articles | Creating and publishing knowledge articles |
| Manage metadata | Improving the findability of knowledge articles |
| Work with reports | Generating reports |
Product roles
The following table explains the user roles that are required to work with BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Management, and the KCS-defined user roles that are supported in BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Management.
| User roles | Description |
|---|---|
| Knowledge Management user roles | |
| Knowledge Manager | Knowledge Managers are responsible for the overall Knowledge Management database content and lifecycle of the articles in the database. They have permission to publish and retire articles. They also register and maintain various knowledge sources. |
| Knowledge Subject Matter Expert (SME) | Knowledge SMEs create the content that goes into the Knowledge Management database (they author and review knowledge articles). They address any comments and update requests for articles. They can publish knowledge articles using a configured approval process. |
| Knowledge Application Administrator | Knowledge Application Administrators set up, configure, and maintain the BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Managementapplication. |
KCS-defined user roles supported in BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Management | |
| KCS Candidate | KCS Candidates search for relevant knowledge articles when resolving support tickets. They can use existing knowledge articles, propose amendments to them, or create new articles where no relevant article already exists. |
| KCS Contributor | KCS Contributors review, enhance, and complete articles created by other users to suit a wider audience, flag articles that need improvement, and unflag articles after improvement. KCS Contributors also create and validate articles, without review by a KCS Coach. |
| KCS Publisher | KCS Publishers publish content to an external audience such as users of Digital Workplace, and they modify published articles. |
| KCS Coach | KCS Coaches monitor, maintain, and improve the knowledge health of an organization by generating various reports and guiding users to adopt good knowledge management processes. A KCS Coach thereby helps to improve the KCS maturity level of an organization. |
BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Managementuser roles and KCS-defined user roles are mutually exclusive. At one time, a user can have either a BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Managementuser role or a KCS user role.
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