Creating knowledge articles for sharing information

Scenario for creating a knowledge article

When resolving an incident ticket, a service desk agent could face an issue that has occurred on multiple occasions. In such scenarios, the service desk agent can create a knowledge article to capture the information required to resolve similar incidents, so that other service desk agents can use this information to resolve incidents faster.

When working on an incident related to email access issues on mobile devices, Jennie Tennyson, a Level 1 service desk agent, notices a substantial number of similar issues. The issue was faced by users who had recently changed their email passwords, but had not updated it on their mobile device. Creating a knowledge article based on this issue can help other service desk agents who receive similar incident requests.

Before you begin

Creating a knowledge article requires the Knowledge Submitter, Knowledge User, or Knowledge Admin permission. For more information about these permissions, see Roles-and-permissions.

To create a knowledge article

1. To create a knowledge article to document the email access problem, Jennie Tennyson opens the incident ticket about email access problem. In the Resources tab, she clicks Search for knowledge resources. Jennie does not find any specific article related to the issue, so she clicks Create a new article. Alternately, on the Dashboard, Jennie can select Create New and then click Knowledge.

   Important

   If you are using BMC Helix Knowledge Management, you will be redirected to the BMC Helix Knowledge Management portal to create a new article. Refer to the BMC Helix Knowledge Management self-help resources for instructions about creating a knowledge article.

2. She selects the Problem Solution template from the list displayed, reviews the format, and clicks Use selected Template.
3. On the Create Knowledge page, she starts to enter the article title. As she types the title, the system finds similar articles, and displays a note.

4. She clicks View them to view similar articles. One of the articles includes some information about email access problem. Jennie wants to include the information from that article to the one she is creating, so she clicks Copy From Article.

   The article from which she wants to copy content is displayed on the left of the screen, and the article she is creating is displayed on the right. Jennie copies the sections from the existing article to the article she is creating. After she copies the sections, she clicks Done to return to the article she is creating.

5. After she updates the content of the article, she updates information in Article Metadata on the right pane of the Create Knowledge page. She can define values in the metadata fields such as, site, organization, and department, assign the article to self by using the Assign to me link.

   Important

   Depending on the primary company, only one of the value belonging to that primary company can be set as primary for the specific metadata attribute. If you change the primary company, the selected primary value automatically ceases to be primary. You can select any value belonging to the new primary company and mark it as primary.

6. (Optional) She clicks the +Add New link in the Attachments section to attach files.
7. (Optional) She clicks the +Add New link in the Related Items section to add related knowledge articles.
8. After she has entered all the required information, she clicks Submit Changes to save the article.

After the article is created, it goes through the regular lifecycle.. For more information, see Knowledge Management overview.

To create a link to another knowledge article

You can create a link to refer to another knowledge article by using the Link Knowledge Article option:

In a knowledge article, when you click a linked knowledge article, it opens the latest Published version of the knowledge article if your administrator sets the showPublishedLinkedArticle configuration parameter to true in the Centralized configuration.

By default, the linked knowledge article link opens the latest version of the knowledge article even if it is in Draft status because, by default, the showPublishedLinkedArticle configuration parameter is set to false in the Centralized-configuration. 

To view the latest created tickets in a pinned knowledge article at the top of the list

When you view a knowledge article, in the Tickets Using this Article panel, the latest created tickets appear at the top of the list. In earlier versions of BMC Helix ITSM, the latest created tickets appear at the bottom of the list.

Adding an image to a knowledge article

In BMC Helix ITSM, when you create or edit a knowledge article, you can add an image to it.

In PWA, users can insert an image into an article by using any of the following methods:

To insert an image using the Insert Image option

1. Under Article content, click Image .
   The Image Properties window is displayed.
2. On the Image Info tab, enter the web address of the image in the URL field or, on the Upload tab, browse for an image from your system and send it to the server.
   The image is displayed in the Preview area, and the reference call of the uploaded image is displayed in the URL field.
3. (Optional) Format the image using the following options:

1. 
   
   • In the Alternative Text text box, enter a short description of the image.

1. 
   
   • Set the width, height, and border of the image.
   • In the HSpace and VSpace fields, set the horizontal and vertical spacing (or margin) between the image border (if present) or the image itself and other document elements that surround the image.
   • From the Alignment list, set the alignment of the image in the knowledge article.

1. (Optional) To assign a hyperlink to the image, open the Link tab and re-enter the web address of the image in the URL field.
2. (Optional) From the Target list, select the window type to open when the image is clicked.
3. (Optional) On the Advanced tab, specify a unique identifier for the image, a language code, the direction of the text, stylesheet classes, CSS style values, advisory tooltip text and a longer description of the URL.
4. Click OK.
   The image is inserted with the formatting you applied.

Knowledge management recommendations for support staff

Search early and search often! This Knowledge-Centered Service (KCS) means that before you create a knowledge article, you should search the knowledge base to check whether articles on the issue already exist.

It also means that you should conduct multiple searches using different criteria, which increases the likelihood that you will find a match. 

Creating a knowledge article when you create an incident request ensures a tighter integration between incident management and the knowledge base, which is important for good knowledge management. It helps to resolve similar incident tickets.

When you create a knowledge article, be sure to capture the full context of the incident. This context includes technical information, such as hardware and software details, and non technical information, such as what the customer thinks could be causing the incident and what impact the incident is having on the customers.

We recommend that you use the following information categories when capturing technical information.

• Incident — The situation (or question) in the customer's words; what are they trying to do or what is not working.
  Capturing the issue in the customer's words is important because other customers are likely to view similar issues if they search knowledge with the similar keywords. If the customer's description is reworded or re-categorized by technical staff after the incident request is created, it might not be found as a match when searching the knowledge base the next time a similar issue arises.
• Environment — What technology does the customer have? Has anything in the environment been changed recently?
• Resolution — The steps required to resolve the incident or to answer the question.
• Metadata — High-level categorization of the article's content aids searchability, maintenance, reporting, and other processes related to the handling of the article.

Over time, the way that a user who reports an incident remembers and interprets non technical information can change. It is therefore important to capture non technical information in a knowledge article early in the incident handling process.

Even if the incident resolution is not yet known, you can start the knowledge article and then add resolution information later. This method ensures that known details are captured and are available to others who might be working on the same or a similar incident request. By always creating incident requests and knowledge articles simultaneously, you also ensure that knowledge articles become an integral by-product of incident registration.

Instructions for classic interfaces