How to review and edit Knowledge Base Articles

Overview

All articles in the Purdue IT knowledge base should be reviewed at least annually by the group that owns the article.   

As a standard practice, technicians should review articles for accuracy anytime they share an article; if any article has been updated, the editing technician can also set the next edit date.   

This article covers two scenarios for reviewing KB articles:  

1. If the article’s owning group does not have access to edit KB articles and  
2. Team’s that have a member with KB editing access.  

Instructions

How to find what KBs your team needs to edit:  

• Use the KBs in Need of Review report on your Manager’s Desktop or create your own by following the instructions here: How to know what KBs are in need of review 

• Use the Knowledge Base Search Portal to search the Knowledge Base by the Owner, using your group’s TDNext name 
   

If your team does not have access to edit KBs 

1. Open selected article. 

2. Review article and any internal notes. Check for accuracy and that the information is easily understandable by the intended audience.  If you have any changes, copy the entire article into a Word Document and make your change.  

Note: If you have additional questions, see the Frequently Asked Questions below. 

3. Send the word document to itservicemanagement@purdue.edu and be sure to include the name of the article that needs updated in the subject of the article.  If the article does not need edited or updated, send an email to itservicemanagement@purdue.edu with the title of the article and a note saying no updates were needed.

If your team does have edit access to Knowledge Base Articles 

Note: Do not edit articles that are not owned by your TDNext group, unless you have explicit permission to do so. 

1. Open selected article. 

2. Click ‘Edit Article” 

3. Review and update any content in the Body section of the article. Check for accuracy and that the information is easily understandable by the intended audience. Once your edits are complete, click “Update Article” to save. If you need to stop in the middle of updating, select “Save as Draft” to return to the article to update. See Below for Frequently Asked Questions about reviewing KBs.  

4. Click on the Settings tab above the article. Here you can update the title, category, article summary or internal notes if necessary.  

5. Set the Next Review Date to no more than one year in the future.  

6. Click Save to save changes.  

Frequently asked questions: 

What if my group should be not the owner of an article assigned to it? 

In the haste to move articles from Footprints to TDX, some articles may have been assigned to the wrong group (or the owning group in Footprints no longer exists in TDX). 

Whenever possible, the current article owner should ask the group they believe to be the owner if they would like to be the new owner. Otherwise, assign a service request to ITSMO to rectify the situation.  

What if the article is no longer needed? 

If the article is no longer relevant and needed, you should submit a request to ITSMO to archive the article (or set the status as Archived, if you have edit access). If the article is about a service or tool that has a replacement article (for example BoilerKey being replaced by Purdue Login) the replacement can be linked to the archived article to help knowledge base navigation.  

Archived articles will be moved to a deleted status (by ITSMO) at a later date.  

Can I change the title of an article? 

Yes. The title is found under the settings tab (for those who have edit access). Changing the title will not affect the linkage/reporting of the article.  
 

How do I know if my article is being used/read? 

Knowing if an article is being used/read is important when evaluating whether to archive or improve an article. To gauge a KB’s usefulness you can:  

• See the “MY KB’s Past or Near Review Date” dashboard (see how above) and look at two columns:  

  •  Associated Tickets Count indicates the number of tickets that have 1.) had the knowledge base article attached as a reference or 2.)were created by someone clicking the “Purdue IT Request” button on the article 

  • Sum of Read By indicates the number of logged in users who have read the article  

• To see an article’s total pageviews, visit the Purdue IT Google Analytics dashboard. On Page 2, you can enter the Articles Title to view just that article and can adjust the date to your preference. Pageviews are the total number of times an article has been viewed.  

Still need help?  Click the 'Purdue IT Request' button to start a ticket.