Phased rollout This documentation supports the 21.05 version of BMC Helix ITSM: knowledge Management. To view an earlier version, select the version from the Product version menu.

Creating knowledge article templates

You can create custom knowledge article templates that suit your company requirements. For example, if your knowledge base includes articles in the format of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), you may want to create an FAQ knowledge article template.Knowledge Management provides the following types of knowledge article templates out of the box:

  • Decision Tree
  • How To
  • Known Error
  • Problem Solution
  • Reference
  • KCS Template

Related topics

Configuring-Knowledge-Management

To create a custom template

To create a new template:

  1. In Developer Studio, create a new Regular AR form.

    Tip

    You can quickly create a new form by opening the regular form of one of the templates provided out of the box and saving it under a new name. For example, open the RKM:HowToTemplate to create a new how to form.

  2. Add fields and design the template as required.

    Tip

    To avoid unnecessary scroll bars, copy the form's measurements from one of the templates provided out of the box.

  3. Register the new form as described in Registering AR forms.
    1. Before registering the new form, make sure it complies with the prerequisites for registering AR forms. See Prerequisites for AR form registration.
    2. In the Welcome panel, select Knowledge Base Item > AR Form.
    3. In the Source panel, select Life Cycle Management.
      After registration, you can change the user interface of the forms, but if you add new fields and mark them for indexing or as relevancy fields, or change the form permissions, you will need to modify the knowledge source as well.
Recommendation

Scenario — Your knowledge base contains an existing FAQ form that is not one of the out of the box templates. You want to turn this form into a knowledge article template so that knowledge users can create new FAQ articles using a pre-defined template. You also want to be able to manage the form records as knowledge articles with metadata and lifecycle management.

  1. In the Developer Studio, open the existing FAQ form.
  2. Modify the layout of the form for better display as a knowledge article.
    You can create a new view and modify the layout as required. Verify that required fields are set with default values or set them to optional.
  3. Register the form as described in Registering AR forms.
    1. Before registering, make sure the form complies with the prerequisites for registering AR forms. See  Prerequisites for AR form registration.
    2. In the Welcome panel, select Knowledge Base Item > AR Form.
    3. In the Source panel, specify the View Name and select Life Cycle Management.
      After registration, all the form's records automatically become FAQ type knowledge articles with metadata and lifecycle management.

Setting up custom knowledge management templates

Custom knowledge article templates, or knowledge sources, created in Knowledge Management are automatically available in Smart IT. However, there are some limitations to the custom templates:

  • Users can access only Attachment and Character fields

  • Validations for required fields is not implemented. If a custom template has mandatory fields, Smart IT does not provide a way to identify them.

    Best practice
    We recommend that you populate all fields displayed on the template.

Knowledge article templates displayed when you choose to create a new knowledge article in Smart IT,  display a short description of the template, and of each field included in the template. 

Use the following forms to add these descriptions to custom templates:

Add description for

Form name

Fields to update

Template (or source)

RKM:KnowledgeSourcesExtension

  • Source Name English — English source name
  • Source Name — Localized name of the type of the Knowledge source.
    This would be displayed on the template selection screen.
    For example, How To
  • Source GUID —This field will be auto-populated with the unique ID
    of the source as on RKM:KnowledgeSources form
    for the corresponding template.
  • Source Description — Localized description of the type of knowledge
    source. For example, for the How To template, the description states:
    The How To template enables you to create knowledge articles
    to provide step-by-step instructions to complete a task.
  • GUID — auto-generated unique ID for the current record 
    saved that is generated when you save the record.
  • Locale — Select the locale for which this information is to be used.

Template fields

RKM:SourceFieldExtension

  • Source Name English — Same as the earlier form.
  • Knowledge Source Name –- Localized source name (as above)
  • Source Field Name — English name for the indexed field included in
    the knowledge source
  • Source Field Label — Localized label of the field
  • Source Field ID — Actual ID of the field on the template form.
  • Source Field Description — Localized description of the field on the
    template. This is an RTF field, and content can be formatted using
    html tags. This description should help users understand the inputs
    required for this field.
  • Field Order — You can define the order in which the fields should be
    displayed on the source template in Smart IT. If this field is not
    populated, a random order is used.
  • GUID — Auto-generated unique ID for the current record
  • Source Field GUID — Auto-populated unique ID of the field as on the RKM:SourceFields form.
  • Locale — Select the locale for which this information is to be used.

Important

  • Source Name English must be in English. For other locales, select a locale and add the locale specific values for each field.
  • If you want to set up custom templates with fields that are not indexed to be displayed in the article, you must add the entries to the RKM:SourceFields form manually instead of using Knowledge Source Registration wizard.




 

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