Use automation to flag out-of-date articles

In any service enviroment, up-to-date knowledge base articles and documentation is a vital aspect of efficient service and support. Keeping articles up to date and relevant (or retireing them when no longer needed) is a key aspect of knowledge-centered-service (KCS).

The Triggered Events feature of HelpMaster can be used for automating several aspects of the knowledge management lifecycle.

Like all documented information, it is a good practice to regularly review the content, style, accuracy and ease-of-use of the information. Reviewing user feedback will also provide useful inforamtion about the quality of the documentation.

Use the Triggered Events feature for Knowledge Base article maintenance

The Triggered Events module is designed to “look for” specific data information, and then act upon the results. One useful configuration of this is to “look for” Knowledge Base articles that have not been updated for a period of time, and then mark them as being out-of-date, and initiating a process whereby it can be examined, verified and updated as required.

Step 1 - Find the out-of-date articles

Create a new Triggered Event profile and target use the “Entity” option to target Knowledge Base articles.

Once you’ve targetted the Knowledge Base article entity type, the next step is to specify what you’re looking for. Use one or more fields within the Knowledge Base article to find exactly what you’re looking for.

Step 2 - Create a process for the articles

If any Knowledge Base articles are found for the specified criteria, you may wish to log a new job and attach each article to the job. Consider creating a dedicated “Knowledge Base article review” Job Template for this task. This job can then be assigned to a person who has the responsibity to check each article and update it as required. This is an optional step, however it may be of use to create a formal process for article review, and provide all of the audit and action-log history for such a task. In addition to logging a formal job for the process, consider also building a process using workflow to structure the process of reviewing each article.

The Triggered Events profile can also add an alert to each Knowledge Base article that is found for the specified criteria. This additional step may be useful to give staff a visual reminder that the article should be reviewed.