This video takes a look at the knowledge base from the end-user self-service perspective.
Linked time codes for these topics appear in the YouTube description for this video.
There are many ways to access knowledge in the ServiceNow system.
This includes through the platform UI...
… or through the Knowledge Management Service Portal homepage, sometimes called the knowledge portal.
The ServiceNow user interface can be customized, so your experience may differ from that shown here...
... but the functionality is the same.
Here, we’re logged into the service portal as Abel Tuter.
Most users access the knowledge portal through the service portal, by clicking one of these links.
Your knowledge administrator may have set up multiple KBs to help users find information for their specific groups or interests.
This also helps the administrator organize and manage the content and control user access.
This indicates that the logged-in user has access to 6 knowledge bases...
... containing 73 articles, and 5 questions and answers posted by users.
Clicking Show all displays all KBs accessible to the logged-in user.
Depending on how it’s configured, your knowledge home may include links to articles for quick access.
Featured articles are selected by the system administrator or KB managers for special attention.
Most Useful ranks articles according to the percentage of readers who marked them as helpful.
And Most Viewed shows the latest viewing trends.
Clicking any link displays that article.
We can see at-a-glance how many articles and questions are accessible to the logged-in user for each KB.
Clicking a KB opens it, allowing us to browse through its articles.
This list is sorted by Views—the number of times users have viewed each article—in descending order.
But we could reverse the order by clicking Views.
Or we could sort by other attributes.
We can use filters to refine the list of articles.
We can filter by Knowledge Bases...
... Category...
... Author...
... Rating...
... Last Modified...
... and View Count...
Each knowledge base has its own categories.
Here are the categories for Human Resources.
Some categories have subcategories.
The hierarchy can be several levels deep.
But we can refine the article list by applying categories and other filters…
…and removing them.
Clicking this icon collapses...
… and expands the filter options for each filter facet…
…And clicking Clear in a filter facet clears all filters for that facet...
... leaving applied filters in place for other facets.
Now the listed results—with a four-star-plus rating...
... come from three KBs instead of just one.
Clearing all removes all the currently applied filters...
... listing all articles, questions, and answers from all KBs that we have access to.
When we search for a keyword, the results show all articles in any KB containing that term.
Here, we have articles from several KBs containing the term, “leave.”
With the filters, we can limit the results to just one KB.
Listed articles include the title…
…KB and category…
…a short preview of the article…
…the author’s name…
…number of views…
…last update…
…and rating.
When viewing an article...
... there are several ways to provide feedback to help knowledge managers improve content and inform other users about the value of the article.
Depending on how your KB is configured, you may not see all these options.
We can indicate whether or not the article was helpful by clicking a response here.
Articles marked as Helpful by the most viewers appear in the KB’s Most Useful list here...
... and on the Knowledge home page.
We can rate the article quality from one to five stars.
The ratings for each article are averaged as a guide for users.
And we can even add a comment to help other users and knowledge managers.
To share an article, just copy its permalink and paste it in an email, a text message, or elsewhere.
Security and access settings will apply when users click the link.
This article says if both parents are employees, only one may take the paid leave benefits.
It doesn’t indicate whether or not employee parents can split the leave benefit.
Let’s suggest updating the article to address that.
Depending on your role and access permissions in the given KB...
... you may see other options here, for example, to flag or edit an article.
Flagging an article is a good way to suggest revisions to the knowledge manager.
These suggestions aren’t displayed to other users, like comments are.
When viewing an article, we can use the breadcrumbs to navigate back to its parent KB or to the Knowledge home.
From here, if you have the required contribution permissions, you can create a KB article.
If Social Q&A is active for a KB, you can ask questions and respond to questions from other users.
You can also vote on helpful questions and answers.
Questions posted in this way appear in the Social Q&A KB.
Here’s how we ask a question.
We’ll ask the question here…
…and give more details here to help other users provide an answer.
This text box supports HTML, so you can use the formatting toolbar or add HTML tags in the source code, if you want.
You can also add tags separated by commas to increase the likelihood that interested users will find your question.
Users can view a list of tags and filter by tag from the knowledge homepage.
And here’s our question.
It’ll look the same to other viewers...
... but Edit is only available to the question owner and knowledge managers.
While viewing the question, users can share or comment…
…Or enter a response here.
We can also check to see if a question has received any responses.
Ah yes! This question got a response!
We can tell at a glance because this icon differs from the one that identifies questions without a response.
Let's see... It looks like we got two answers.
Oh good!
Laurie provided the meeting location!
When you’re viewing questions or answers, you can vote up questions that you want users to answer...
... and answers that you think are helpful.
And you can vote down questions that you don’t find useful, or answers you think are incorrect.
You can vote for each question or answer only once, but you can change your vote.
You can’t vote on your own question or answer.
The higher the score from all votes, the higher the question or answer appears on the page.
Only the question owner or knowledge manager can accept an answer as correct.
Questions with accepted answers are identified with a green check mark.
For more information, see our product documentation, knowledge base, or podcast.
Or ask a question in the ServiceNow Community.