Overview of the Knowledge-Centered Service

Overview of KCS

KCS is a rich methodology that enables users to create and maintain knowledge within an organization. The Consortium for Service Innovation has created the KCS methodology and maintains it. The KCS methodology is as follows:

• Create knowledge as a by-product of solving incidents.
• Collect available knowledge in a comprehensive knowledge base.
• Reuse existing knowledge before creating new content, leading to evolution of knowledge as per the need and usage.
• Encourage users to collaborate, learn, share, and improve knowledge within the organization.

By adopting the KCS methodology, you can promote knowledge management best practices within your organization. For detailed information about the KCS methodology, see the KCS Practices Guide, available from the home page of the Consortium for Service Innovation website.

Product compatibility with KCS features

To use the KCS functionality, you must have the following product versions:

BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Management support for KCS features

The following enhancements in BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Managementprovide the infrastructure support for the various KCS functionalities:

KCS permissions

BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Managementnow supports the following key license levels defined by the KCS framework:

• KCS Candidate
• KCS Contributor
• KCS Publisher
• KCS Coach

The KCS license levels are hierarchical, and users gain authority as they advance from one level to the next. The level of KCS knowledge, application of available knowledge, and skill level determine a user's license levels.

The KCS defined license levels are mapped to four new permission groups in BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Management. BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Management user permissions and KCS user permissions are mutually exclusive. At one time, a user can have either BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Managementuser permissions or KCS user permissions. To generate and view KCS reports, you must use BMC Helix ITSM: Smart Reporting.

Your organization can shift to the KCS framework in a phased manner rather than a one-time transformation. You can assign KCS permissions only to a group of users, while the remaining users continue to have BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Managementuser permissions.

For detailed information, see Roles-and-permissions.

KCS template

A new out-of-the-box template, the KCS template, is available for creating knowledge articles. This template is structured according to the KCS article definition. Knowledge articles created using the KCS template provide information about the problem; environment information such as hardware, software, and so on; resolution of the problem, and the underlying cause.

For detailed information about the KCS template, see Knowledge-article-templates for an overview about the KCS template and other templates in BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Management.

New forms and escalations for KCS support

While a few existing forms have been updated in BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Management, the main change is that several new back-end forms and escalations have been added to support KCS features. The forms compute metrics for generating KCS reports that can be viewed through .

Data Management and KCS

Using the Data Management tool, you can create KCS articles from the KCS template. The Transactional-Knowledge.xlsx spreadsheet has a new RKM_LoadKCSTemplate_Join tab that is used for creating knowledge articles by using the Data Management tool. For more information, see the following resources from the BMC Helix ITSMSuite online documentation:

• Access control for ticket data for information about the mapping of transactional data from spreadsheets to target forms.
• Troubleshooting Data Management for information about the data management process.

There is no change in the data management process or the functionality of the Data Management tool.

Process overview for KCS

The following diagram illustrates the process of using and publishing knowledge articles:

When service agents record incidents, they search for knowledge articles that can help resolve the issue. If an applicable knowledge article exists, the service agent links to it. A service agent who also has the role of KCS candidate can update the knowledge article.  Service agents have access to knowledge articles even at the draft stage.

If a KCS candidate does not find a knowledge article, the KCS candidate creates a new knowledge article. When the KCS candidate completes the proposed knowledge article, the knowledge article gets set to a draft status and becomes available to service agents to help resolve incidents.

If a knowledge article is used frequently, heavy usage of the knowledge article shows that the article is important. At this point, a KCS contributor validates the quality of the knowledge article. The KCS contributor might include subject matter expert (SME) reviews as part of the validation. After the validation is complete, the KCS contributor publishes the knowledge article internally. Service agents can see that the knowledge article has a status of verified and can be more confident when using the information in the knowledge article.

A KCS publisher identifies which verified knowledge articles to publish publicly. After identifying the knowledge articles, the KCS publisher might get SME reviews before publishing the knowledge articles. Public knowledge articles are available to end users in Digital Workplace.

KCS users

As a Knowledge-Centered Service (KCS) Coach, you must ensure that your team follows KCS methodology. KCS practices enhance the collective efforts of the knowledge team to create and maintain a rich knowledge base. To create an effective environment, you must monitor the team's work and plan for improvements.

KCS users are users with appropriate KCS permissions assigned to them according to their KCS role: KCS Candidate, KCS Contributor, and KCS Publisher. A knowledge team consists of KCS users who belong to organizations, departments, and support groups of the company to which you may or may not belong.

BMC recommends that you have access to your team member's company and support groups. If you don’t have access to your team member’s support group, you will not be able to see tickets that belong to their support group. This will display incorrect data in KCS reports.

If you don’t have access to the company to which your team member belongs, you will see erroneous issues such as the following:

• Default question set is used instead of the question set specific to the company and organization the author belongs to.
• The assignment engine will not work as expected.

The Knowledge menu gives you a quick view of your team, and their contributions. You can set question sets to assess their articles, assess articles your team members have written, and generate team performance reports. Based on the results, you can plan strategies to improve your team’s functioning.