This documentation supports the 23.3 version of BMC Helix ITSM: Knowledge Management.To view an earlier version, select the version from the Product version menu.

Creating and modifying 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

Setting-up-and-going-live

Learning-about-Knowledge-Management


To create a new custom template in Developer Studio

  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, click 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.

To set up custom knowledge management templates

Custom knowledge article templates, or knowledge sources, created in Knowledge Management are automatically available in BMC Helix ITSM. 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, BMC Helix ITSM 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 BMC Helix ITSM,  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 BMC Helix ITSM. 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.
  • If you register a custom knowledge article template from the Manage Knowledge Sources Registration wizard and try to create a knowledge article using this custom template in locales other than English, then you must add locale-specific entries manually in the RKM:KnowledgeSourcesExtension and RKM:SourceFieldExtension forms.

To modify knowledge template styles using BMC Helix ITSM

You can modify or add formatting styles to the out-of-the-box knowledge templates or custom knowledge templates available in BMC Helix ITSM.

Important

  • Style editing is not supported on mobile devices.
  • The updated style is reflected on the articles that you create after updating the style. The articles that you have already created before updating the style, do not reflect the updated style.
  • You should set the font-family in the additional CSS to 'OpenSansRegular', 'OpenSans', 'Helvetica' to get the same font style as in the preview for the header elements (<h1> - <h6>).

To change formatting settings for knowledge articles:

  1. Log on to BMC Helix ITSM.
  2. Select Configuration > Knowledge Template Styles.
  3. Select the template to edit from the  template list displayed in the left pane.
  4. You can create a new styles by clicking +Add New Style.
    ITSM console.png

  5. If you are creating a new style, enter a name for the style, and select the formatting options for the new style. Ensure that the name of the new style you are creating is not the same as an existing style name.

    Important

    The following characters are not supported in the knowledge template style name: ' " \ () <> ` & [ ] = ; , % /

  6. If you are modifying an existing style, click the arrow.gifnext to the style you want to update.
    You can modify the style of the font, the size, color. You can also include additional CSS styling for the style.
    If you want to include additional formatting to the existing style that is not provided on the screen, you can add it to the CSS Styling field. For example, you can add the following additional styles:
    • box-shadow: 0px 1px 2px 1px light blue;
    • line-height: 30px;
    • margin-left:20px
  7. After you have modified the styles, click Save Styles.
    While adding new style, in the Additional CSS Styling, the limit is set as 255 on the database table column. You may get an error if it crosses this limit. For the troubleshooting information, see General troubleshooting.
  8. If you want to remove a custom style you added, click the style name and click X Delete Style.
    You cannot delete styles provided out-of-the-box.



 

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