Knowledge Management

Process Guide
Utah Release

Asset Number: 0003644

© 2023 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of
the respective companies with which they are associated.
Table of Contents
Introduction........................................................................................................................ 4
Knowledge-Centered Service (KCS)....................................................................................4
Knowledge management using ServiceNow.......................................................................5
Governance........................................................................................................................ 5
Overview......................................................................................................................... 5
Controls........................................................................................................................... 5
Roles and responsibilities................................................................................................... 6
Knowledge administrator................................................................................................. 6
Knowledge manager........................................................................................................ 6
Responsible for:............................................................................................................... 6
Knowledge contributor.................................................................................................... 6
Knowledge user............................................................................................................... 6
Knowledge group manager.............................................................................................. 7
Knowledge coach............................................................................................................. 7
Knowledge domain expert............................................................................................... 7
ServiceNow processes and technology...............................................................................8
Knowledge management process flow...............................................................................9
Structure knowledge......................................................................................................... 10
Steps to structure the knowledge base.........................................................................10
User criteria................................................................................................................... 10
Request a knowledge base............................................................................................11
Knowledge blocks.......................................................................................................... 11
Capture knowledge........................................................................................................... 11
Knowledge management lifecycle.................................................................................11
Draft.............................................................................................................................. 12
Review........................................................................................................................... 12
Scheduled for publish.................................................................................................... 12
Published....................................................................................................................... 12
Pending retirement........................................................................................................ 12
Retired........................................................................................................................... 13
Outdated....................................................................................................................... 13
Article versioning........................................................................................................... 13
External content integration..........................................................................................13
Harvest knowledge from a community..........................................................................13
Creation of knowledge within processes........................................................................13
Retire knowledge.............................................................................................................. 14
Manage data retention of the view log..........................................................................14

© 2023 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of
the respective companies with which they are associated.
Improve knowledge.......................................................................................................... 14
Provide feedback and rate articles................................................................................14
Knowledge feedback tasks............................................................................................ 14
Ownership groups.......................................................................................................... 14
Content health.................................................................................................................. 15
Dashboards and reporting................................................................................................ 15
Knowledge Management Overview dashboard..............................................................15
Knowledge Management dashboard..............................................................................16
Article Quality Index (AQI)................................................................................................ 17
Testing.............................................................................................................................. 18
Other service management processes.............................................................................18
User experience................................................................................................................ 19
Process diagrams.............................................................................................................. 19

© 2023 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of
the respective companies with which they are associated.
Introduction
This process guide describes 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 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.

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 the use of the knowledge base into our processes
will dictate the benefits realized through KCS.
KCS strives to:
 Integrate the creation, reuse, and improvement 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 with 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 Using a template or form for writing an article keeps the

knowledge 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.

© 2023 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of
the respective companies with which they are associated.
 Performance Tracking searches helps to identify missing knowledge and high
assessment usage.

Leadership and Knowledge authors are guided by coaches that review articles,
Communication so the authors competency can increase.

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.
The 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 for accessing, using, validating usefulness, and recommending
updates to knowledge. This includes actioning knowledge feedback tasks (if in use).
 Establish a tracking and reporting system to track requests for new and use,
maintenance, and retiring of existing knowledge
 Whenever knowledge is published (new or modifications), communicate
availability to all applicable stakeholders

Roles and responsibilities

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Knowledge administrator
Responsible for:
 Creates and manages knowledge bases
 Can act as a knowledge manager for all knowledge bases
 Manages knowledge groups
ServiceNow role required:
Knowledge administrator [knowledge_admin]

Knowledge manager
Responsible for:
 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 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 the top of search results
 Gathers and reports on process metrics
ServiceNow role required:
Knowledge manager [knowledge_manager]

Knowledge contributor
Responsible for:

 Submits new knowledge articles

 Updates the content of submitted articles
 Completes knowledge feedback tasks (if in use)
ServiceNow role required:
Knowledge [knowledge]

Knowledge user
Responsible for:

 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
ServiceNow role required:
No specific role required

Knowledge group manager

Responsible for:

 Manages a group of users who own knowledge articles

 Assigned feedback tasks by default
 Can reassign feedback tasks to other group members

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trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of
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 Responsible for ensuring articles owned by their group are managed and reviewed
correctly
 Identifies knowledge that needs to be updated
ServiceNow role required:
Knowledge Group Manager [knowledge_group_manager]

Knowledge coach
Responsible for:

 Performs AQI (Article Quality Index) surveys on knowledge articles

 Writes, edits, and reviews knowledge articles
 Advises teams on knowledge best practices
ServiceNow role required:
Knowledge Coach [knowledge_coach]

Knowledge domain expert

Responsible for:

 Performs AQI (Article Quality Index) surveys on knowledge articles

 Writes, edits, and reviews knowledge articles
 Tracks overall health of knowledgebases
ServiceNow role required:
Knowledge Domain Expert [knowledge_domain_expert]

© 2023 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of
the respective companies with which they are associated.
ServiceNow processes and technology
Following the KCS principles, the processes and technology that ServiceNow supports can
be mapped.

Structure Capture Reuse Improve

Content health
knowledge knowledge knowledge knowledge

Create Provide
Multiple knowledge Subscribe to Report on the
knowledge feedback and
base knowledge usage of articles
articles rate articles

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

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

Import Word
documents into
Permissions
knowledge
defined per
articles and/or
knowledge base
author
using user criteria
knowledge in
Word

Request a
knowledge base

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trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of
the respective companies with which they are associated.
Knowledge management process flow

© 2023 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of
the respective companies with which they are associated.
Structure knowledge
Structuring knowledge is critical to creating, sharing, using, and managing the knowledge
and information within the organization.

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
appropriately 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 the 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, and 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,’ and ‘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.
User criteria
Access to each knowledge base is controlled with user criteria. You can specify who
can/cannot read and who can/cannot contribute by specifying individual users, groups,
roles, companies, locations, or departments. Even more complex user criteria are
possible using scripting.
When necessary, user criteria can also be applied to control read access to individual
knowledge articles in a knowledge base.
 If no user criteria are set, then by default, access is available to everyone
 If a user matches both ‘cannot contribute’ and ‘can contribute’, then they cannot
contribute to the knowledge base
 If a user matches both ‘cannot read’ and ‘can read,’ then they are denied access
 If a user has contribute access to a knowledge base, then they have read access to
the knowledge base automatically but could still be denied read access to individual
knowledge articles

© 2023 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of
the respective companies with which they are associated.
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.

Knowledge blocks
Knowledge blocks can be used in knowledge articles to insert pre-written content. There
are two reasons to use knowledge blocks:
 To re-use content across multiple knowledge articles
Reduces knowledge maintenance as the content only needs to be updated in one
place.
 E.g., Including contact center phone numbers and opening times inside
knowledge articles
 To show different content to different groups of users
Removes the need to duplicate and tweak articles for different audiences.
 E.g., Showing different content in different countries
 E.g., Giving managers additional information and guidance compared to
employees
Each article can contain many knowledge blocks with only the relevant block(s) visible,
based on who is viewing the article (this is driven by user criteria permissions applied to
the knowledge block).

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 and 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

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trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of
the respective companies with which they are associated.
 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, an 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 of whether to create a new article or
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 the review state for a knowledge manager to
review and publish if acceptable
 Instant publish: the article is moved to the 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 consume the
information within the article.
Encryption can also be set up 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
the owner may choose to:
 Update – State remains at ‘review’
 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 with 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.

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

Article versioning
The article versioning feature lets you maintain multiple versions of a knowledge article.
Each time an unpublished article is edited, it increases the minor version number (after
the dot e.g., 1.01 to 1.02). When an article is published, it increments the major version
number (before the dot, e.g., 1.02 to 2.00).
Knowledge managers can:
 Check out the latest version of a published article and create a new version
 Select a previously published (outdated) version of an article and make it current
 Compare two versions of an article to understand the differences
 Retire the latest published version of an article

External content integration

Information required to solve issues often exists outside of formal knowledge bases, e.g.,
documentation, internal project files, and 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 process owners
within the enterprise and have different classifications 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.

 The KCS methodology requires the ability to capture knowledge from cases:
 Captured in the context of solving an issue
 Captured in the customer’s language
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 is added to the knowledge base specified in the configuration.
Depending on the configuration knowledge created from a case, 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.

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trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of
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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 with 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.

Improve knowledge
Having closed-loop feedback on the knowledge articles is critical to supporting the health
of the knowledge base and directing 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 a 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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trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of
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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 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 the 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 the effectiveness of the knowledge management
process
 Maintain or increase the efficiency of the knowledge management process
 Continually improve the knowledge management process

Dashboards and reporting

A Knowledge Management Overview dashboard is provided through the Performance
Analytics - Content Pack - Knowledge Management (com.snc.pa.knowledge_v2) plugin.
Activation of this plugin on production instances might require a separate Performance
Analytics license.
Knowledge Management Overview dashboard
The Knowledge Management Overview dashboard provides overviews of the article
lifecycle, feedback, usage, and author metrics. It is intended to help
 Knowledge administrators understand the usage, maintenance, and quality of their
knowledge bases so that they can plan and direct content creation
 Knowledge managers keep track of content publication processes, and what
customers are searching for, so that they can manage their teams appropriately

Article lifecycle
This tab tracks the governance of knowledge articles. It includes indicators covering:
 Articles created in the last 30 days
 Number of articles in review
 Articles breakdown by workflow state
 Articles in review for more than 30 days
 Articles created in the last 30 days
 Articles updated in the last 30 days
 Articles in the Draft state

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trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of
the respective companies with which they are associated.
This data can identify any blockages in the publication process, highlighting areas that
need more investigation. This should be monitored by the knowledge administrator and
process owner regularly so that they can intervene and correct any problems.

Article feedback
This tab summarizes feedback and article ratings, giving a view of how the knowledge
users feel about the available knowledge. This includes:
 Articles flagged in the last 30 days
 Articles marked Not Helpful in the last 30 days
 Comments added in the last 30 days
 Article ratings in the last 30 days
 Average article rating
Tracking the information in this tab regularly helps you see progress from any article
improvements. Knowledge managers should monitor this tab to ensure their team are
handling feedback and improving the quality of their knowledge.

Article usage
This tab summarizes articles' usage and views. This tab includes:
 Knowledge use (where an article is attached to a task)
 Article views (where an article is viewed)
 Knowledge use trended by month
 Article view count trended by month
 The information here lets you focus attention on the areas where you can have the
most impact and track progress. Knowledge administrators and managers can use
this data to measure how useful their knowledge is to the knowledge users

Author metrics
This tab is similar to the article usage tab but breaks the views and usage by the article
author. This tab shows:
 Monthly knowledge use by author
 Monthly knowledge views by author
 Articles created by author
Use this information to understand which of your knowledge authors provide the most
useful content. Knowledge managers can use this to compare contributor performance as
an aid to target coaching and managing their team.

Knowledge Management dashboard

The Knowledge Management dashboard provides overviews of content usage, content
governance, and content quality. It is intended to help:
 Knowledge administrators and knowledge managers monitor how the knowledge how
effectively knowledge consumers can find and use knowledge articles, how quickly
the articles are being published, and the quality of the articles there

Content usage
The content usage shows a summary of knowledge searches and clicks, split by
authenticated and unauthenticated users. It includes:
 User activity (searches and views)
 Click-through rate (a measure of how often a user finds what they are looking for in
the search results)

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trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of
the respective companies with which they are associated.
 Average click rank (a measure of how highly ranked the click-throughs are in the
search results)
 Unauthenticated user activity (searches and views)
 Unauthenticated click-through rate
 Unauthenticated average click rank

Content governance
This tab tracks metrics around the publishing process. This includes:
 Average time to publish
 Percentage of knowledge articles published
 Breakdown of time to publish (so you can identify outliers in the publishing velocity)

Content quality
Use the content quality tab to view measures of how good the knowledge articles are.
This includes:
 Average article quality index
 Percentage of knowledge articles flagged (articles where feedback has been
submitted)
 Monthly average article rating
 Articles with inactive authors
 Invalid articles
 Articles created over 1 year ago
 Articles not published

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.

Article Quality Index (AQI)

The 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 enable 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
knowledge base.

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.

© 2023 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of
the respective companies with which they are associated.
Testing
Use the quick start tests for Knowledge Management to validate that Knowledge
Management still works after making any configuration change, such as applying an
upgrade or developing 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).

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 the text entered in 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 a task (e.g., incident, case, change,

etc.) to ensure details of processes, procedures, diagnosis, and
resolution activities are communicated to other users of knowledge.
Task
management
The task form displays contextual search results based on text
entered in the short description field. These search results provide
targeted knowledge to the agent.

Knowledge should be used to document the activities required to

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

Can be used for knowledge creation by taking community solutions

Community
and creating a knowledge article

© 2023 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of
the respective companies with which they are associated.
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 & Service Portals

Use AI search engine in the Now Mobile platform and Service Portals to help users find
answers in a visually appealing way. AI search also supports using buttons within results
enabling users to proceed quickly with their tasks.

AI search is available in the Now Mobile and Service Portal platform capability 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 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-corrects 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

Process diagrams
The process diagrams in editable format (Visio) can be found on Now Create LINK.

© 2023 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of
the respective companies with which they are associated.