KnowledgeBase Documents From Ticket Descriptions

Summary: Valuemation incident ticket descriptions can be published as a KnowledgeBase documents. Such documents are then searchable within the KnowledgeCenter suite, which greatly enhances reusability of information.

The process involves the following steps:

• In Valuemation Incident editor, identify or create a useful ticket description.
• Set the ticket description flag 'Suggestion KB-Document' to true.
• Locate the ticket description in the Proposed KB-Documents catalog (found in the KnowledgeBase folder of the 'Incident Manager' and 'Problem Manager' Sidebar) and use action 'Apply in KBase'.
• A corresponding KnowledgeBase document is created.

Use Case

An incident ticket description has been found really helpful and would be worth publishing outside Valuemation, as a KnowledgeBase document searchable within the KnowledgeCenter suite.

1. A Valuemation incident ticket is opened, you are working with its ticket descriptions. (You must be the ticket responsible person to be able to do so.) Create a new (or identify an existing) ticket description useful for solving the ticket. The ticket description must be of the 'Solution' statement type.
2. In the ticket description editor, set the 'Suggestion KB-Document' flag to true and save the change. This registers the ticket description as a candidate for being published as a KnowledgeBase document. Such ticket descriptions are displayed in the 'Proposed KB-Documents' catalog. This catalog is also a starting point for further administration of these KnowledgeBase document 'candidates'.
3. Go to the Incident Manager sidebar and locate the 'KnowledgeBase' folder. The folder contains three catalogs:
   • Proposed KB-Documents
   • Created KB-Documents
   • Declined KB-Documents

   At this point we need to go to the 'Proposed KB-Documents' catalog.

4. The 'Proposed KB-Documents' catalog contains ticket descriptions with the 'Suggestion KB-Document' flag set to true, i.e. ticket descriptions considered suitable for publishing as a KnowledgeBase document.
   • To publish a ticket description, use catalog action 'Apply in KBase'.

     Select a ticket description in the 'Proposed KB-Documents' catalog and click the 'Apply in KBase' button. A corresponding KnowledgeBase document is created and a message 'For the following ticket a new document was created...' is displayed. Click 'Ok' in the message popup.

     As a result:

     A) A new KnowledgeBase document is created

     B) The original ticket description is deleted from the 'Proposed KB-Documents' folder and an entry is created in 'Created KB-Documents' catalog.

   • Alternatively, action 'Reject' can be used

     Select a ticket description in the 'Proposed KB-Documents' catalog and click the 'Reject' button. The ticket description is removed from the 'Proposed KB-Documents' catalog, moved to 'Declined KB-Documents' and no KnowledgeBase document is created.

     Note that rejected ticket descriptions from the 'Declined KB-Documents' catalog can be "re-proposed" by calling the 'To Propose' action. Such descriptions appear in the 'Proposed KB-Documents' catalog again and can be published.

5. Having used the 'Apply in KBase' action, switch back to KnowledgeCenter. The newly created document can be found among other KnowledgeBase documents.

   What information from the source ticket description is passed to the new document depends partially on settings made in the 'KnowledgeBase' tab of 'Setup Administrator Settings' in Valuemation. Namely, setting the following check boxes to true has the below described consequences:

   • Attachments from Ticket apply

     If the source ticket description had attachments, the attachments will also be attached to the resulting document. (Attachments can be found in the 'Attached Files' section of the KnowledgeBase document.)

   • Transfer ticketclass and ticketno

     Text "This document was created from Incident <ticket number>" is added to the KnowledgeBase document content.

   • Transfer "Creator of the solution description"

     Text "This solution description was created by <user> is added to the KnowledgeBase document content.

Documents created in this way become part of the KnowledgeCenter-administered information base. They can be searched via KnowledgeCenter and further processed using KnowledgeBase powerful document management functionality.