Table of contents
Contact the KM Team with any questions by email: km-webteam@umd.edu
ServiceNow Ownership Group members will learn to search, create, and edit articles. We will also cover how to edit a service catalog entry. This will be bare-bones information to prevent those new to ServiceNow, Knowledge Management, and especially both, from becoming overwhelmed.
Knowledge Bases
Knowledge Bases each have a different audience and workflow.
- IT Support: Public. Ownership Group members can manage these articles.
- IT Internal: DIT only.
- UMD Support Center: The Support Center is a centralized portal for accessing important resources and submitting inquiries or cases to the appropriate departments. These departments include Finance, Human Resources, Procurement, and Workday among others. The portal also features a comprehensive library of job aids and how-to articles to help guide you through various tasks. For more information, see Getting Started with the UMD Support Center (support.umd.edu).
Portal view vs Agent view
- Portal View is the public-facing part of ServiceNow.
- Agent View is the employees-only section.
- Support portal is the centralized UMD support center.
- Most DIT actions can be done in either view.
- Customers can only access Portal view.
Portal view
Searching ITSupport portal
- Go to ITSupport Log in.
- Enter a search term under How may we help you?
- Use the search result tabs to narrow down the search results.
- Knowledge shows articles only.
- Services show service catalog entries.
- Catalog Items show any forms (typically for requesting services and features).
- All.
Search Support portal
- Go to UMD Support Center. Login.
- Enter a search term under How may we help you today?
- Use the search result tabs to narrow down the search results.
- All displays all available content including forms and articles.
- Requests shows forms only
- Articles displays articles only.
Portal view articles
This is a quick way to access an article.
NOTE: Share the article using the Copy Permalink link at the bottom of the article. Copying the URL from the browser search bar is not a permanent link and will not work long-term.
Portal view article editing shortcut
- Select the Actions drop-down and then select Edit.
- This will take you to the agent view.
- We'll cover editing actions later, this is just focusing on how to use portal view to get to the editing form.
Portal View Service Catalog editing
Edit service from the catalog entry.
- Will be immediately approved if you are in the Ownership Group.
- If you need to edit something not covered in this form, contact the KM team.
Agent View
Article searching
- Start at ITSupport or UMD Support Center.
- Login. Click on your initials at the top right of the window.
- Select Agent View from the drop-down menu.
- In the Filter Navigator search bar on the left, enter knowledge > Edit or Articles > Edit.
- In the Search bar at the top, search for an article to get to the same editing form you access through the portal view.
Article editing
You can't edit articles in portal view, it only offers another way to agent view editing.
These instructions on editing an article cover:
- Updated version link.
- Checkout button to edit.
- Article version numbers.
- Saving, deleting, and publishing a version.
- Who can create a new version of a knowledge article.
Additional Information tab provides metrics like how many times an article is used in an incident by a Service Desk agent and how many views it has received over the last 90 days.
View article versions
You can view previously published versions of articles in the portal view.
- From a portal-view article, click Latest Version on the upper left of the article.
- From the drop-down, select an outdated version to view.
Ownership Group field
Adding a group to this field triggers an approval process for this article. You must be in the Ownership Group to instantly publish a new or edited article. Those in the Ownership Group must approve edits submitted for publication by outsiders.
Complete the article form
The article form typically refers to the fields above the article's body fields. These are the administrative component of articles.
- Category: The public location within the service catalog.
- Your group will work with Elevate and the ServiceNow Admin to establish categories.
- Service Offering: Links documentation, forms, and service catalog entries together.
- Content Item, Configuration Item: Used to link documentation to a service offering.
- In articles, we use the Configuration Item field which tends to be the same as the service offering. For example, Cisco Unified Contact Center Express (formerly ACD) Term & Conditions article has Cisco Unified Contact Center Express as the configuration item. The configuration item is set when creating a service (content item).
- Service Catalog: The public presentation of a service offering.
- Ownership Group: Adding a group to this field triggers an approval process for this article. You must be in the Ownership Group to instantly publish a new or edited article. Those in the Ownership Group must approve edits submitted for publication by outsiders.
- You will see a popup about this field being automatically filled in with your group. For the purposes of this training, select OK.
- Short Description is just your title.
- Avoid redundant titles like How to create an article in favor of Create an article.
- Predict how customers will search the topic and incorporate that into titles.
- Make sure they are tuned to be specific without overcomplicating. Create an article may be too generic. Create an article using a template in ServiceNow may be too narrow or include information inherent to the task. Create an article in ServiceNow is tuned to provide some context while staying simple.
- More Tips on writing better Short Descriptions.
- The Attachment link toggle will open attachments and not the article. This should not be checked.
- Information in the article body is used to connect documentation to features related to search, agent support, and chatbot functionality.
- It is out of compliance with the style guide.
- The Display Attachment toggle creates a section below the article body where attachments can be downloaded. Typically this is unnecessary. PDFs are the exception.
- In the Confidence field, your articles will all be validated by default. Not-validated articles are typically for new call center agents.
- Governance can be Experience Based or Compliance Based.
- Experience is for all articles that aren't held to any legal, political, or leadership considerations that would otherwise require it to be marked Compliance.
Add content to your articles properly
See the ServiceNow Article Style Guide for instructions on:
- Short description.
- Headings.
- Hyperlinks.
- Adding images.
- Adding PDF attachments.
- Copy and format the PDF text.
- Permalinks (sharing an article).
- Tables.
Article State
|
Confidence field |
Is it published? |
|
Work in progress |
No |
|
Validated |
Yes |
|
Not Validated |
Yes |
|
Archived |
No |
Retire articles
When articles are no longer relevant, necessary, or accurate, you may wish to retire the article entirely. In order to do so, follow these steps:
- On the desired article, Click the Actions drop down menu, and select Edit Article
- Click the Retire button in the upper right hand corner.
NOTE: Once an article has been retired, you will not have the ability to un-retire that article. In order to have it un-retired, you'll have to request it by reaching out to the Knowledge Management team via email km-webteam@umd.edu.
After retiring an article, it's important to ensure it's not linked in any other articles. Please perform a search to confirm this.
- Go to Agent View.
- In the filter navigator on the left, type knowledge. Scroll down to Knowledge -> Articles -> Edit to get a list of articles you have access to.
- Click on the Show/hide filter icon at the top left.
- Set up your search criteria:
- Choose the Keywords field and input the article number that you have retired. For example: KB0011111.
- Next, choose the State field and select Published.
- Click the Run button to view any results, if available.
- Eliminate any references to the retired article found in the search results. Also verify that the sentences before and after remain coherent and do not reference the retired article in any way.
Create a report
Generating reports is a valuable tool in streamlining the review of articles. By compiling relevant data and presenting it in a structured format, reports provide a comprehensive overview that facilitates efficient analysis and decision-making. Follow the steps below to create a report in the knowledge base.
- Go to ITSupport. Click Login in the top right corner and sign in. Click on your initials and select Agent View.
- In the filter navigator on the left, type knowledge. Scroll down to Knowledge -> Articles -> Edit to get a list of articles you have access to.
- Click on the Show/hide filter icon at the top left. Set up your search criteria and click Run to generate the report.d
- Click the Gear icon at the top right to set the columns you would like to see in your report. Use the right arrow to add a column or left arrow to remove a column. Click Ok to save.
NOTE: Usually, including only the Number (article #) and Short description columns is sufficient for the report. However, depending on the purpose of generating the report, you may consider adding additional columns such as View counts or Ownership group. - Click the vertical ellipsis icon in the header (three dots) to the right of any column. Select Export -> Excel (.xlsx). Export will export what you see on the screen.
- When the export is complete, click the Download button. The Excel file will be saved in your Downloads folder.
- Open the spreadsheet in Google Drive. To facilitate the review process for articles, add columns for Reviewed by, Status, and Notes and then format each column appropriately.
- Share the sheet with the members of the Ownership group.
Instances
Instances are copies of ServiceNow environments. Check your browser URL to make sure you are in IT Support, DEV or TST.
PROD
This is the live, published version of itsupport.umd.edu.
https://itsupport.umd.edu/agent
https://itsupport.umd.edu/itsupport
DEV
This is where new features are developed. This instance resets every 90-120 days.
https://dev-itsupport.umd.edu/agent
https://dev-itsupport.umd.edu/itsupport
TST
This instance is for testing ServiceNow updates to ensure things will function when it updates to PROD. It is often the best place to explore, test, and experiment without any repercussions.
https://tst-itsupport.umd.edu/agent
https://tst-itsupport.umd.edu/itsupport