Approving Knowledge Articles

When the status of a knowledge article is set to pending approval, the approval workflow starts. Depending on how your administrator has configured the workflow, a knowledge article can be approved by either a user or a group. By default, approval is set up for group approval. See Setting up the Knowledge Advisory Boards and Configuring Approvers and Approval Workflows for Knowledge Articles for more information.

If a knowledge article has to be approved by a group, depending on your settings, the article is approved if either all the approvers approve it or if only 51% of them do. By default, 51% of approvers must approve the article. In all cases, a Knowledge ManagerEnsures knowledge is stored and shared among the various IT processes and gathers and analyzes information and knowledge. The goal of the Knowledge Manager is to improve efficiency by reducing the need to rediscover knowledge. can cast the decisive vote and approve a knowledge article.

If you are an approver for a knowledge collection, you are notified when the status for an article belonging to that specific collection is pending approval. See The Knowledge Approval Workflow for more information about the knowledge approval process.

You can approve an article approval request in either of the following ways:

From the email notification
From the Self Service application

The Approval Vote Tracking record for the approval instance of the knowledge article is updated to show your response.

Responding to a Knowledge Article Approval Request by Email

You can either accept or reject a knowledge article by responding to it directly from the email notification. When you are notified of an article approval request via email, do the following:

1.

Click Reply.

Do not modify the subject line of the notification email when sending your response through email.

2.

In the body of the message, type either approved or denied to indicate your acceptance or rejection of the article approval request.

The approval keywords are configured in the FRS Approval Status Keyword tab records in the Email Configuration form. By default, the keywords to approve or reject via email are approved and denied.

3.

If you reject the article approval request, enter the reason for rejecting it in the second line of the body of the message.

4.

Click Send.

Responding to a Knowledge Article Approval Request Using Self Service

You can either click the link that appears in the notification email to go to the Self Service application or log directly into the Self Service application.

If you use the Self Service Console for approvals, you must be in the Self Service role. Contact your administrator to add the Self Service role to your employee profile if you are not able to log into the Self Service application.

1.

Log into Self Service.

2.

Click My Items.

3.

Select Approval Request from the drop-down list.

4.

Click Approval Request for Knowledge.

5.

Either approve or deny the article approval request:

If you approve the request, click Approve, then click Approve again to dismiss the approval confirmation message and confirm the approval.
If you deny the request, click Deny, then enter the reason for denying the request in the Deny Approval-Reason field and click Submit.

Viewing Knowledge Article Approvals

As a Knowledge Manager you can view, at a glance, the following:

All approvals for all knowledge articles, by clicking the Approval Vote Tracking tab on the navigator bar.
The approvals just for a specific knowledge article, in the Approvals tab of the knowledge record.

Viewing Approvals for All Knowledge Articles

1.

Log in to the Service Desk Console as a Knowledge Manager. Open the Approval Vote Tracking workspace. The list of approval votes appears.

2.

Sort the Name column for knowledge approvals.

3.

Select a specific knowledge article approval and double-click it to view the form.

The following information is displayed on the top pane of the form:

The tracking ID of the knowledge article approval request.
The team and owner (approver) of the record.
The status of the vote.
The name of the user casting the vote.
The date and time when the vote was cast.
The reason for not approving the knowledge article, if it was denied.
The knowledge ID and a Go to button to navigate to the knowledge article .
The Approval tab on the form shows the names of the approvers and the status of their approval (pending, approved, or denied).
The Email tab on the form shows the email records (if the approval vote was cast through email).

Viewing Approvals Linked to a Specific Article

1.

Log in to the Service Desk Console as a Knowledge Manager. Open a knowledge article approval request and click the Approvals tab.

2.

To view a tally of the votes, open the knowledge article approval request by selecting and double-clicking it.

Approving a Knowledge Article