Knowledge base and knowledge management
A knowledge base is an information library that contains information about a product, service, existing issues and their solutions, organization policies, and so on. It is important to create and maintain a knowledge base so users can easily access the required information and resolve issues on their own.
To simplify the user access to a knowledge base, Knowledge Management enables users to create, publish, maintain, translate, and search knowledge articles that belong to their organizations. Knowledge articles are a great way to document, maintain, and share different types of knowledge, such as references, problems and solutions, finance, and legal, within an organization.
Knowledge Management provides the following benefits:
- Improve self-service.
- Reduce the number of issues that are raised.
- Access to up-to-date information.
- Consistent structure and formatting.
- Create knowledge articles as per the business needs.
Knowledge sets and knowledge templates
Knowledge sets enable users to create categories of knowledge articles and to determine the groups of users who will be able to read or write knowledge articles. BMC Helix Innovation Suite Knowledge Management (ISKM) can have multiple knowledge sets. The view, edit, and search permissions of knowledge article templates and knowledge articles are inherited from knowledge sets. A Knowledge Coach can modify the permissions of the associated knowledge articles. When a service desk or case agent creates an article, the agent must select the knowledge template and knowledge set for the article.
Knowledge article templates provide structure and consistent formatting for knowledge articles. In ISKM, the following knowledge article templates are provided out-of-the-box:
Template name | Description |
|---|---|
How to... | Use this template to create knowledge articles that provide step-by-step instructions to complete a task. |
Knowledge Centered Support | Use this template to create knowledge articles that provide information about the problem, environment information such as hardware, software and so on; resolution of the problem, and the underlying cause. This template is structured according to the Knowledge Centered Support (KCS) article definition. |
Reference | Use this template to create an information resource. |
Knowledge article versioning
Any changes that users make to a published knowledge article are tracked through versions of the knowledge article. When users with appropriate permissions want to update published knowledge articles, they can edit the existing version for minor edits or create a major version for adding or deleting information. At any given time, only one version of a knowledge article is published. You can view the version number of a knowledge article in the Knowledge Console, and also when you open the article. The version number is displayed with the version creation date.
A knowledge article can have major or minor edits. A major version of a knowledge article is created when a user adds or deletes information from the knowledge article. When you create a major version of a knowledge article, data from the existing version is copied to the newer version. The new version becomes a draft knowledge article and can be updated till it is published. When the newer version is published, the older version becomes inactive and moves to the Closed status. The latest version of the knowledge article becomes the active version. When you want to make minor changes to a knowledge article, such as fixing typos, you can edit the same version of the knowledge article.
All versions of a knowledge article have the same ID. When service desk or case agents search for knowledge articles from Create Incident, Create Case, global search, or BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced, only the latest and published versions of knowledge articles are searched. From the Knowledge Management console, you can view all versions of the knowledge articles.
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