Knowledge Base - Terms and concepts

Knowledge Base features functions that enables handling of any kind of information needed for problem solving and knowledge sharing for the application users.

KB Article is the basic item in the KB management. It contains information relevant for problem solving and knowledge sharing in the supported system. KB article must belong to certain KB Category.

Author is the user who created KB Article.

KB Categories is a hierarchic tree-organized set of values that indicates the subject of the content of the KB articles.

KB Article Type is the descriptor of the nature of the information in the KB Article. Five types will be implemented as default: Q&A, Known Error, Problem Solution, Reference, Copyright and Legal questions and Simple Article.

KB Article Status is the descriptor of the current status of the KB Article. Following default statuses are defined: Draft, Pending Approval, Published and Archived.

Publishing is the event to make an Article available in the Knowledge Base. Publishing Scope defines whether the KB Article will be published as Public (visible both on Self Service Portal and Agent portal or Private (visible only on Agent Portal).

Group is a property that determines who can see a KB Article. If you define one or more groups for the article it is visible only for users belonging to those groups. If no group is defined is the article visible for all users. The Author and users with administrative privileges can see the article independent of group settings.

Keywords is an area of phrases used for KB search. Keywords are entered by the author of the KB article.

Article Feedback is the way the user can give his opinion of the quality and usefulness of the KB Article. Feedback can be given in three ways:

   Rating is a way to provide user to rate given KB Article. Five star (points) rating system is used.

   Is It Helpful is a flag user can set if they find the KB Article helpful.

   Comment is a textual comment of the KB Article entered by user.

Attachment is any type of document that can be attached to the KB Article and contains further information of the KB Article topic.

Archiving is an event to make KB article archived. After that KB Article will not be available for search in Knowledge Base.

Versioning is the mechanism that enables multiply versions of the same KB Article, and makes it possible to insert changes in the Article. Only one version of the same article can be published in any given time.

Relation is the method of describing relations between KB Articles and other entities in the NSP system. Three relation types could be selected:

   KB Article – KB Article association is the way to associate articles. There is no special condition on how the articles will be associated. It’s up to user needs.

   Ticket - KB Article association is the way to use KB Article as a solution for the ticket.

   CI - KB Article association describes the relation where KB Article contains information related to the given CI.