Knowledge Management

Process Guide
Rome Release

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Contents
Introduction...............................................................................................................................................................3
Knowledge-Centered Service (KCS)........................................................................................................................4
Knowledge Management using ServiceNow............................................................................................................5
Governance...........................................................................................................................................................5
Roles and Responsibilities....................................................................................................................................6
ServiceNow Processes and Technology...............................................................................................................7
Knowledge Management Process Flow................................................................................................................8
Structure Knowledge.................................................................................................................................................9
Steps to Structure the Knowledge Base................................................................................................................9
Request a Knowledge Base...................................................................................................................................9
Capture Knowledge.................................................................................................................................................10
Knowledge Management Lifecycle....................................................................................................................10
External Content Integration...............................................................................................................................11
Harvest Knowledge from a Community.............................................................................................................12
Creation of Knowledge within Processes...........................................................................................................12
Retire Knowledge...............................................................................................................................................12
Manage Data Retention of the View Log...........................................................................................................12
Improve Knowledge................................................................................................................................................13
Provide Feedback and Rate Articles...................................................................................................................13
Knowledge Feedback Tasks................................................................................................................................13
Ownership Groups..............................................................................................................................................13
Knowledge Base Q&A........................................................................................................................................13
Content Health........................................................................................................................................................15
Dashboards and Reporting..................................................................................................................................15
Article Quality Index (AQI)................................................................................................................................17
Testing.................................................................................................................................................................17
Other Service Management Processes....................................................................................................................18
User Experience..................................................................................................................................................19

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Introduction
This process guide will provide a detailed explanation on how the knowledge management process is enabled
within the ServiceNow platform. It is intended that this process be followed as closely as possible. ServiceNow
encourages simple, lean ITSM processes and that is reflected in the out-of-the-box design. Additional
functionality can be incorporated into what is offered; however, this should only be in scenarios where there is a
required business outcome gained that could not be achieved using an out-of-the-box method. Following this
approach should also ease upgrade paths and the ability to expand the use of the platform.

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Knowledge-Centered Service (KCS)
Knowledge-Centered Service is a service delivery method that focuses on knowledge as a key asset of the
organization implementing it. KCS practices and the tools that support them must be integrated with other
support and business systems, including case management, incident management, change management, and
service level management processes and systems to get the most value from this approach.

The degree to which we can integrate use of the knowledge base into our processes will dictate the benefits
realised through KCS.

KCS strives to:

Integrate the reuse, improvement, and (if it does not exist) creation of knowledge into the problem-solving
process
Evolve content based on demand and usage
Develop a knowledge base of collective experience to date
Reward learning, collaboration, sharing, and improving

KCS will not be described in detail here. The KCS principles ServiceNow aligns to will be used to structure this
document.

We will focus on the KCS Solve loop.

Capture knowledge When a customer request comes in, those answering the request create an article
as a by-product of solving the customer’s problem.
Structure knowledge Using a template or form for writing an article keeps the knowledge base
consistent, making it easier for customers
Reuse knowledge Search the knowledge base when solving a customer issue, and they can link it to
other relevant articles they may have used when solving a problem.
Improve Knowledge Agents are inherently reviewing the knowledge as they research articles to solve a
problem and therefore can provide feedback on the usefulness

In addition, we will also look at aspects of ServiceNow that support the KCS Evolve loop.

Content Health Measure the effectiveness of each article.

Process Integration Usage stats indicate which articles are the most popular and requested.
Performance Assessment Tracking searches helps to identify missing knowledge and high usage.
Leadership and Knowledge authors are guided by coaches that review articles, so the authors
Communication competency can increase.

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Knowledge Management using ServiceNow
Knowledge management (KM) is the process of creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and
information of an organization. It refers to a multidisciplinary approach to achieving organizational objectives by
making the best use of knowledge. To achieve this there must be a framework that KM can operate within.

Knowledge Management Framework must address

Governance
Roles and responsibilities
Process
Technology

Governance
Overview
Governance is a vital component of the Knowledge Management Framework.

Without governance, there is no assurance that the Knowledge Management system will ever be used.

The three main elements of Knowledge Management Governance.

A clear set of corporate expectations for how knowledge will be managed in the organization, including
accountabilities for the ownership of key knowledge areas
Ensure that people are delivering on their accountabilities
Support for Knowledge Management, including a support team, reference material and training.

Controls
Process controls are activities that are performed to ensure a process is stable, repeatable, and operating
effectively and efficiently with only normal variations. Knowledge Management controls include the following:

Set up formal Knowledge Management procedures to handle in a standardized manner all requests (including
maintenance and updates) for knowledge on services, applications, procedures, processes, etc.
Review all adds or updates to knowledge in a structured way to ensure consistency of article format,
readability of content, and storage requirements.
Establish a process accessing, using, validating usefulness, and recommending updates to knowledge. This
includes actioning Knowledge Feedback Tasks (if in use).
Establish a tracking and reporting system track request for new and use, maintenance, and retiring of existing
knowledge.
Whenever knowledge is published (new or modifications), communicate availability to all applicable
stakeholders.

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Roles and Responsibilities
There are three main roles defined in the ServiceNow process:

Knowledge Manager:
Manages and coordinates the day-to-day Knowledge Management processes and activities
Defines knowledge categories
Reviews submitted knowledge articles to ensure the content is valid and that the quality standards are respected
Obtains appropriate Subject Matter Expert (SME) validation, where needed
Identifies new content and/or solutions needed to support the end users’ needs
Encourages people to contribute knowledge articles
Creates and maintains knowledge templates
Pins important knowledge articles to appear at top of search results
Gathers and reports on process metrics

Knowledge Contributor:
Submits new knowledge articles
Updates the content of submitted articles
Completes knowledge feedback tasks (if in use)

Knowledge User:
Uses knowledge in day-to-day activities
Provides feedback on existing knowledge
Identifies missing knowledge needed in day-to-day activities
Identifies knowledge that needs to be updated

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ServiceNow Processes and Technology
Following the KCS principles the processes and technology that ServiceNow supports can be mapped.

Structure Knowledge Capture Knowledge Reuse Knowledge Improve Knowledge Content Health

Provide feedback and rate

Multiple knowledge base Create knowledge articles Subscribe to knowledge Report on the usage of articles
articles

Separate, customizable workflows

External content integration Search for knowledge articles Ask and answer questions Article Quality Index
for each knowledge base

Category structure with any

number of levels. Each knowledge Create knowledge from cases,
Report knowledge gaps
base has a unique category incidents, and problems
taxonomy

Permissions defined per knowledge Import Word documents into

base using user criteria knowledge articles

Request a knowledge base

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Knowledge Management Process Flow

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Structure Knowledge
Structuring knowledge is critical to creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information within
the organisation.

Steps to Structure the Knowledge Base

With the participation of the different service/business stakeholders:

 Determine the number and name of Knowledge bases, what content will be in each, and who will have
access to each.
– The primary manager of a knowledge base is the owner of that knowledge base.
– Each knowledge base must have one owner. There may be any number of additional managers for each
knowledge base.
– Each knowledge base can have a publish and retire workflow specified appropriate to the required
approval levels. These may differ depending on the type of content e.g., HR vs Marketing vs technical.
– Determine content ownership, security, and access rights.

 Determine how the knowledge base content will be organized by topic and category to facilitate easiest
access and use by all users. Each knowledge base can have its own multi-level taxonomy that is
independent of the other knowledge bases.
– When considering the taxonomy and number of knowledge bases, also consider the use case of search
which is likely to be the majority use case.
 Determine the various views that will be needed (for example, end users, service desk, network support,
others).
 Determine the various configurable aspects.
– Use templates to aid knowledge creation. There are 4 templates available out-of-the-box through the
Knowledge Management Advanced plugin: How To, What Is, KCS Article, FAQ.
– Use UI extension points to customize knowledge article headers and footers.

Differing types of feedback are available for articles. It is important that there is a process in place to take this
feedback and action it. This will help develop the knowledge base based on collective experience.
If the Group Ownership system property is enabled, User Groups can be created and listed on individual
knowledge articles to define a group of people who are responsible for maintaining specific articles.

Request a Knowledge Base

Requesting a knowledge base is something that is possible through the service catalog for users. When
considering whether a new knowledge base is required, all the steps to structure the knowledge base are
applicable. In addition, a knowledge article can only appear in a single knowledge base. Therefore, if the
information is required in multiple knowledge bases then multiple knowledge articles must be created.

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Capture Knowledge
Knowledge Management Lifecycle
States in any ServiceNow application serve a specific purpose. They are designed to make it clear where in the
process a record currently resides and to display its progress. States should represent a unique phase in a process
where a specific set of related activities are grouped together designed to achieve a particular outcome in order to
move to the next phase of the process. For example, in Knowledge Management, the Published state should
contain all activities required to understand what was done to publish the article. It would not be expected that
resolution explanation activities would occur during other states. Out of the box, Knowledge Management has
the following state model:

• Draft
• Review
• Scheduled for publish
• Published
• Pending retirement
• Retired
• Outdated

Draft
When a knowledge article is first created, it is in a state of Draft. The mandatory fields are:

 Knowledge base
 Short description

The draft article does not appear in the knowledge base (KB) for users until it is reviewed and published. The
Category field is selectable once the knowledge base has been selected.
In addition, the following field may be filled out automatically:

 Source task: relates to the task if applicable e.g. Case, Incident that the knowledge article was created from

Before creating a new article, the recommended practice is to search for duplicates. This can save time and gives
the author the option on whether to create a new article or to update an existing one.

The action after an article is submitted is dependent on the workflow selected for that knowledge base.

 Approval Publish: the article is moved to review state for a knowledge manager to review and publish if
acceptable
 Instant Publish: the article is moved to published state

The use of templates within ServiceNow is recommended to drive consistency of approach in style for different
types of articles. This helps the user consuming the information within the article.

Encryption can also be setup on specified fields when the knowledge base is created. This will hide the
information in the field unless the user has the appropriate role to view.

Review
The knowledge base article is now available to review. The Knowledge base Manager and Owner may choose
to

Update State remains at Review

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 Approve State moved to Publish
Reject State moved to Draft
Delete State moved to Draft

As part of the review process the approvers can provide comments relating to the article and their decision.

Scheduled for publish

In this state, the draft version of a knowledge article is scheduled for publishing on a future date.

Published
In this state, the article is available to users who have appropriate permissions. These permissions are best
determined through user criteria.

Pending retirement
In this state, the published article is selected for retirement, pending approval.

Retired
Moving an article to retired removes the visibility of the article from the knowledge base. There may be an
approval process for retiring articles specified depending on the knowledge base.

Outdated
This state indicates a more recent version of the article has been published. End users can read published articles
as well as the outdated versions.

External Content Integration

Information required to solve issues often exists outside of formal knowledge bases e.g. documentation, internal
project files, error databases. Using federated search solutions that rely on “search engines” of the individual
sources and combine on UI lead to poor relevancy / user experience. These sources often have different
processes owners within the enterprise and have different classification and standards.

ServiceNow can be linked to external content such that it can be searched within ServiceNow. The configuration
determines whether the selected article is displayed within ServiceNow or the system of record. The external
content cannot be modified within ServiceNow and is only available as read only.

Harvest Knowledge from a Community

Harvest knowledge from a community and create structured knowledge articles from unstructured discussions
around a question.

Creation of Knowledge within Processes

Reuse of knowledge that is created while solving a case avoids time spent "reinventing the wheel" while solving
cases.

KCS methodology requires the ability to capture knowledge from cases:

 Captured in the context of solving an issue

 Captured in the customer’s language

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ServiceNow out-of-the-box supports article creation from a case, an incident, or a problem. The short description
from the case, incident or problem becomes the knowledge article title and are added to the knowledge base
specified in the configuration. Depending on the configuration knowledge created from a case, or an incident or
a problem may require additional approval.

There is also the option to create a submission record is created instead of a knowledge article. A user with the
knowledge role must approve the submission to create a knowledge article. Approving a submission creates a
new knowledge article using the submission content.

Retire Knowledge
Knowledge articles should be reviewed at least annually. Periodic reviews of the knowledge base content need
to be conducted to ensure its usefulness and relevancy. During these reviews, updates may be identified or the
article may need to be retired. Knowledge articles can also have a valid to date set when they are created. This
helps the review process and allows for time-bound articles (e.g., an article associated to a public holiday).

Manage Data Retention of the View Log

A data retention policy allows for the automatic removal of unwanted and older data from the Knowledge Use
(kb_use) table by using the data retention policy. By default, all the records in the Knowledge Use table are
retained. Activating the data retention policy for the table deletes records that are no longer needed.

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Improve Knowledge
Having closed loop feedback on the knowledge articles is critical to supporting the health of the knowledge base
and to direct further work.

Provide Feedback and Rate Articles

You can submit feedback for knowledge articles in these ways:

 Flag an article as incorrect or inappropriate.

 Provide a rating value for the article.
 Mark an article as helpful or not helpful.
 View comments, add a new comment, or reply to existing comments.

Whether these various feedback options are available to the users can be configured within the system.

Knowledge Feedback Tasks

Manage high volumes of article feedback by enabling task generation for negative feedback. When an article is
rated poorly or marked as unhelpful, a feedback task is generated and assigned to the author or reviser of the
article.

The task assignee can update the article, create a new article, request additional feedback, or reassign the task
and receives notification after the feedback is updated or resolved.

Note: Feedback tasks are only generated if feedback is given on the Knowledge Service Portal.

Ownership Groups
When knowledge articles are created, ownership groups can be associated to them. Ownership groups manage
article approvals and feedback and can edit and retire knowledge articles that they are associated with.

Knowledge group managers can edit ownership groups managed by them by adding or removing members
without the need for approval. You can also create an ownership group from an existing group.

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Content Health
Critical Success Factors (CSFs) identify key process objectives that must be met in order to be successful.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) evaluate the success of an activity toward meeting the CSF. Successfully
managing KPIs can be either through repeatedly meeting an objective (maintain) or by making progress toward
an objective (increase/decrease).

Knowledge Management Delivery

– Reduction in mean-time-to-repair (MTTR) due to improved knowledge availability
– Increased use of documented knowledge articles
– Improved value of documented knowledge article
– Increased maintenance of knowledge articles

Standardized Knowledge procedures followed

– Maintain or increase number of knowledge articles
– Maintain or increase knowledge articles created from a case, incident, or problem record
– Increased first time approval on submitted knowledge articles

Knowledge Management Process

– Maintain or increase effectiveness of the Knowledge Management process.
– Maintain or increase efficiency of the Knowledge Management process.
– Continually improve the Knowledge Management process

Dashboards and Reporting

Process KPIs
Effectiveness of a process refers to the usefulness of the process output in relation to the expectations and needs
of the customer. Process KPIs need to:
Provide information on the effectiveness of the process and the impact of continuous improvement efforts
Are best represented as trend lines and tracked over time
Monitored by the Process Owner

Item Purpose

Measures the usefulness and value of the content.

Percentage of knowledge articles viewed vs. used
Helps understand the usefulness of the article.

A subjective measure of the quality of the output of

Average article rating (if used)
the Knowledge Management process.

Measures the knowledge support commitment of the

Number of new articles contributed
organization.

Number and percentage of articles not accessed for X Measures how well the knowledge base content is
(amount of time) being maintained.

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Operational Data
Knowledge articles that need attention and/or intervention are best tracked on a dashboard or homepage that is
monitored by the Knowledge Manager.

Item Purpose

Provides quick view of articles that need to be

List of articles in Draft
reviewed.

(Depends on Feedback options selected) All user

List of user feedback to be reviewed feedback must be reviewed, and follow-up action
determined.

Articles that are not used must be reviewed for

List of articles not accessed for X (amount of time)
deletion or relevance.

Reports and Homepages

There are numerous default reports available in ServiceNow that can be used to generate charts, can be published
to a URL, or can be scheduled to be run and distributed at regular intervals. Users can also create custom reports.

In addition to reports, each user can create a personal homepage and add gauges containing up-to-the-minute
information about the current status of records that exist in ServiceNow tables.

Performance Analytics Content Pack

This plugin enables out-of-the-box Performance Analytics Dashboard for Knowledge Management KPIs.

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Article Quality Index (AQI)
KCS methodology encourages agents to contribute to the process of article creation as part of their case
resolution. Therefore, authors may not be professional content editors

To maintain a high quality of content in the knowledge bases an article quality evaluation mechanism is required
to enables customers to review and evaluate the quality of articles and the performance of the authors. This
enables constant improvement in the content and authors content editing skills.

The knowledge admin would create the AQI checklist, adding true/false questions and defining the order and
weight of the questions. The checklist would be assigned to the knowledgebase.

The knowledge coach and knowledge domain expert would perform AQI reviews - the results of which would
be emailed to the author. Finally, the author would review the scores and comments and take corrective action
as required.

Testing
Use the Quick start tests for Knowledge Management to validate that Knowledge Management still works after
making any configuration change, such as apply an upgrade or develop an application. Copy and customize the
quick start tests to pass when using your instance-specific data.

Knowledge Management quick start tests require activating the Knowledge Management Core plugin
(com.glideapp.knowledge), the Knowledge Management Advanced Installer plugin
(com.snc.knowledge_advanced.installer), the Knowledge Blocks plugin (com.snc.knowledge_blocks), and the
Customer Service Management Demo Data plugin (com.snc.customerservice.demo).

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Other Service Management Processes
Knowledge is a vital part of the case management and incident management processes. It is available using the
Contextual Search feature embedded into the case/incident record and record producers to display relevant
knowledge articles as the case/incident is being created. Contextual Search will use text entered into the Short
Description fields or other text fields to search for close matches in the knowledge base and display these on the
screen.

Process Relation Description

Knowledge can be created from an incident or a case to ensure details of diagnosis and
resolution activities are communicated to other users of knowledge.
Case / Incident
Management The incident/case form displays contextual search results based on text entered in the
Short Description field. These search results provide targeted knowledge to the
incident analyst.

Knowledge should be used to document the activities required to fulfill service

requests.
Request Fulfillment
Knowledge should be used to fulfill service requests.

Knowledge can be created from a problem or known error to ensure details of

diagnosis, workaround and resolution activities are communicated to other users of
knowledge.
Problem
Management
Knowledge can be used in the Problem Management process to identify potential
workarounds that have been used to resolve cases/ incidents or identify change
implementation activities in problem analysis.

Change Management can use knowledge to help in risk assessment as well as to obtain
information on activities to be performed to implement a change.

Change Change Management can use knowledge to track change plans (testing,
Management implementation, backout, etc.)

Change Management should use knowledge to keep details of activities to be

performed on standard changes.

Can be used for knowledge creation by taking community solutions and creating a
Community
knowledge article

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User Experience
Mobile platforms and virtual technology can have a positive impact on how end users interact with the end-to-
end process and ultimately how the entire user experience is perceived. Consider which touchpoint in the process
can leverage the mobile platform to minimize delays in the process. Tasks such as finding knowledge and chat
can all be performed on mobile devices. Consider also how Virtual Agent can be deployed to assist users in
common actions and tracking progress.

AI Search in mobile
Use AI Search search engine in the Now Mobile platform to help users find answers in a visually appealing way.
AI Search also supports the use of buttons within results enabling users to proceed quickly with their tasks.

AI Search is available in the Now Mobile platform and utilizes the data sources of catalog items, KB articles,
and users. Use AI Search, wherever possible, when using these data sources. Zing search engine is available for
all mobile platforms and utilizes additional data sources not associated with AI Search, for example user tasks or
requests.

AI Search offers the following intent-based results to facilitate users during a search:

 Navigation tab filters - Filters are broad categories that the user selects to eliminate pages or results on a site.
 Auto-complete - AI Search predicts the query as the user enters text and helps to formulate the user's
question.
 Recent and popular searches - After the user taps the search bar and before entering text, suggested search
options display according to the user's personal search history and queries by all users on the instance.
 Auto-correct typos - AI Search auto-correct typos based on its indexed content.
 Synonym handling - The search engine can look for similar words entered and produce results accordingly.
 Genius cards and action items - Genius result cards display the most relevant answers in an attractive visual
layout. They can also offer users the option to perform actions within the card.

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