Body
Purpose
The purpose of the Knowledge Base (KB) is to provide information to people who need it and are looking for it. This includes everyone from end users (students, faculty, and staff) to Service Desk Analysts and Support Group Technicians. Our goal is to make sure the information presented is accurate, easy to use, and relevant.
Types of Articles
To enhance Ease of Use, we have created a set of standard article types to keep a consistent look and flow to our Knowledge Articles. The types of articles are:
- General Information
- How To
- Problem and Resolution
- Support Information Page (SIP)
General Information
These articles are used to present information that isn't necessarily about resolving a particular problem or giving a list of steps on how to accomplish something. They may be used to give an overview of a service or application used at MSU, for example.
How To
These articles are used when someone wants to accomplish a task that requires a series of steps. This may be instructions how to install a piece of software, or to change something on their profile, etc.
Problem and Resolution
These articles address a specific issue that a user may be experiencing, and gives a solution or work-around to resolve it. It may be how to clear a specific error the user is receiving, or resolve unintended behavior in an application.
Support Information Page (SIP)
These articles are the baseline starting point for the IT Service Desk (ITSD) to use when taking contacts about a given service. They are intended to give ITSD the basics of what they can and should be doing to gather information about and troubleshoot incoming issues, as well as how to escalate issues that they are not able to resolve at that level.
Types of Permissions
The main permissions at issue for the KB are being able to Create, Edit, and Publish articles.
Create
All analysts have the ability to create new articles for the KB (link) and submit them for review.
Edit
All analysts have the ability to edit articles that their group(s) own (link) and save the edited article as a draft for review.
Publish
Publishing is currently restricted to the Knowledge Management team, the MSU IT Service Desk, and other select individuals who have completed a training program and displayed proficiency in the KB process.
The Review Process
To ensure the KB is both accurate and relevant, we require that all knowledge articles be reviewed every six months. TeamDynamix provides automation for this process, notifying the groups that own articles when it is time to review each. The full review process is outlined in KB 762 (link).
Links to Relevant Articles