About the IU Knowledge Base transition to ServiceNow Knowledge

• Overview
  • Coffee hours where you can learn more
• About the transition
  • URLs
  • KMS tools
  • Working with the KM team
  • Internal content
  • KB mailforms
  • API use
• Considerations and questions about using ServiceNow Knowledge
  • Article URLs and Permalinks
  • Google search results
  • Dark mode

Overview

In fall 2024, Indiana University will retire the Knowledge Management System (KMS) and move the IU Knowledge Base to the ServiceNow Knowledge platform. This change will take further advantage of IU's investment in ServiceNow and enable additional ServiceNow functionality.

If you have questions or comments at any time throughout this process, contact the KM team at kb@iu.edu.

Coffee hours where you can learn more

The IU community is invited to coffee hours to hear about the project, with ample time for questions. These sessions are being recorded, and more will be added if there's interest:

• Wednesday, July 10, 1-2pm
  Meeting recording
• Thursday, August 1, 1-2pm
  Meeting link

About the transition

• Knowledge Base articles will have new ServiceNow URLs, but old KB URLs will redirect appropriately, as will the top-level kb.iu.edu page.
  Important:

  Be sure to use ServiceNow article permalinks when you want to save article URLs, rather than the URL in your browser's address bar, as those are version specific. Learn more about this below.
• The Contributor Authoring Environment (CAE) and other KMS tools (such as worklists) will be retired.

  Rather than worklists, the KM team plans to work with stakeholders using shared spreadsheets when you need to view and work on a list of particular articles. More to come on this!

• If you own content in the Knowledge Base, the way you work with the UITS Knowledge Management (KM) team otherwise won't change. The team will still be working with you in the same ways to maintain your documentation, and you may continue sending new content and updates to kb@iu.edu. Questions are always welcome!
• Restricting content to internal audiences will still be possible. This will be done by ACM groups, rather than ADS security groups. If some or all of your documentation is restricted and you have an ACM group set with that audience, send it to kb@iu.edu so the KM team can make sure all is up-to-date as it should be.
• Knowledge Base mailforms have been replaced with other appropriate contact means (contact forms, web pages, email addresses).
• Website owners using the KMS REST API to pull KB content are working with the KM team to adapt their sites. Most are linking to KB pages from their sites, and the ServiceNow API is also an option.
  Important:

  If you are using the KMS public API, contact the KM team at kb@iu.edu to discuss future plans to avoid issues with your site. Because the KMS public API requires no authentication, the KM team cannot determine what endpoints or teams are using this method to pull content from the Knowledge Base.

Considerations and questions about using ServiceNow Knowledge

• Article URLs and permalinks: When viewing a ServiceNow article, the URL in your browser's address bar is the URL for that particular version of the article.

  When you search, the latest versions will be returned; however, if you select an article to view and then copy that URL from the address bar to use later, and the article is updated afterward, then that older version will be display if you go to the URL you saved.

  Instead, you should instead always use the "Copy Permalink" option on each article page, which will return the latest version of that article.

• Google search results: Pages from other schools using ServiceNow Knowledge are returned in Google search results, and we expect that ours will be as well.
• Dark mode: You can control dark mode through your browser's settings, rather than in ServiceNow.