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    Home New York Now Platform Capabilities Now Platform capabilities Knowledge Management Use Knowledge Management Create a knowledge article

    Create a knowledge article

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    Create a knowledge article

    Knowledge contributors can create and edit knowledge articles within a knowledge base to share information across your organization.

    Before you begin

    You must have Can Contribute access to at least one active knowledge base.

    To view an article template, you must activate the article templates feature and enable the desired templates.

    About this task

    Users with at least one role can create and edit knowledge articles. These users are known as knowledge contributors. Users without any role can read articles and submit feedback, but cannot create or edit articles.

    If you try to create an article with more than 2 MB of data, the article might fail to create because of the Now Platform limitation.

    Some knowledge bases may allow only certain users to contribute. For example, a member of the IT department can create knowledge articles in the IT knowledge base, such as desktop support information or articles describing company IT processes.

    Procedure

    1. There are three ways of creating knowledge articles.
      • Navigate to Self-Service > Knowledge and click the Create an Article icon.
      • Navigate to Knowledge > Articles > Create New.
      • From the Knowledge Management homepage, click the Overflow icon and then Create Article.
    2. On the Create new article page, select a knowledge base.
      The list of article templates to select in the next step is filtered according to the article templates available for the selected knowledge base.
      Note:

      On the Create new article page, you can select to Switch to older version of this page or Switch to updated version of this page (recommended).

    3. Select an article template.
    4. Click Next.
      The Knowledge form is displayed based on the article template selected.
    5. Fill in the fields on the form, as appropriate.
      Table 1. Knowledge form
      Field Description
      Knowledge Base The knowledge base selected for this article.
      Note: An article can only be associated with one knowledge base.

      You can change the knowledge base, but only if the selected article template is available in the knowledge base.

      Category The category for this article. Select a Knowledge Base before you can select a category. Articles without a category appear on the knowledge homepage in the (empty) category.
      Ownership Group The ownership group for this knowledge article. An ownership group consists of a group of members and a manager who are responsible for approvals, ensuring article quality, and feedback tasks. Ownership groups can publish, edit, and retire knowledge articles that they are associated with.
      Note: If no ownership group is assigned, the article automatically goes to the knowledge administrator and knowledge manager for approval.
      Language Language in which you are creating the article. The list is populated based on the languages enabled for the selected knowledge base. This field appears only when the I18N:Knowledge Management Internationalization Plugin v2 plugin (com.glideapp.knowledge.i18n2) is activated. For more information, see I18N - Knowledge internationalization.
      Published The date this knowledge article was published. This value is set when the article is published.
      Valid to The date this knowledge article expires. Articles do not appear in search results after the Valid to date or if the Valid to date is blank.

      The default value of the Valid to field is derived from the Article Validity field configured for the knowledge base (see Create a knowledge base). The Valid to date starts from the date the article was created until the number of days specified in the Article Validity field. If the Article Validity field is blank, the default date in the Valid to field for the knowledge article is set to January 1, 2100. An article author or editor can select whether to keep or change the default Valid to date.

      Note: If the system date format or user preferences is set to use yy year format, you might face issues when the Valid to date is set to the default date. Contact your system administrator or modify the user preferences to use a date format with the yyyy year format. For more information, see Global date and time field format and Personalize the system date format topics.
      Version Version of the article. This field appears only when the article versioning feature is enabled. For more information, see Article versioning.
      Parent Number of the article that represents the base language article. This setting keeps translations of the same article related to each other. Consider choosing the same language consistently for the parent article. This field appears only when the I18N:Knowledge Management Internationalization Plugin v2 plugin (com.glideapp.knowledge.i18n2) is activated. For more information, see I18N - Knowledge internationalization.
      Note: The Parent field contains the first version of the parent article only. This field is used by the translation management feature to maintain the relationship between the source article and its translations.
      Article type The type of article, either HTML or wiki.
      Note: This field is only visible in the standard template.
      Workflow [Read-Only] The publication state of the article, such as Draft, In Review, or Published. When inserting a new article from an existing article, the state of the new article is reset to Draft.
      Source The task this knowledge article was created in response to, if any. This field is set automatically when you create the knowledge article from a task record.
      Attachment link Check box for downloading an attached file automatically when a user accesses the article, instead of opening the article view. Add one or more attachments to the article to use this option.
      Note: You may attach multiple files, but most web browsers permit users to download only the first one. To ensure download of all the files, bundle them into an archive, such as with WinZip, and attach the archive. The Attachment link option applies to articles accessed from search links only. Articles accessed from links within other knowledge articles will not automatically download an attached file.
      Display attachments Check box for displaying attachments to users viewing this knowledge article. Attachments appear below the article text. Add one or more attachments to the article to use this option.
      Short description The title of the article. This title appears when browsing and searching knowledge, and at the top of the article.
      Note: If contextual search is enabled, the knowledge articles similar to the entered short description text appear in the Knowledge results section.
      Article body Content for the article. Use the HTML editor to create content. A preview of the content appears when browsing and searching knowledge.
    6. (Optional) To search for similar articles, type in the Related Search field or continue with the default text in the Knowledge Results section. If the Knowledge results section is not displayed on the Knowledge form, a system administrator can configure the form layout to add the Contextual Search Results field to the form.
      • To find knowledge articles that have high text similarity with the entered search text, choose Similar Articles (ML).
        Note: This option is available only when the Predictive Intelligence feature is enabled and your system administrator has trained the similarity solution for Knowledge Management. For more information, see Train the similarity solution for Knowledge Management to find related articles.
      • To find knowledge articles that match the entered search text, choose Search Articles.
    7. (Optional) To view the entire article in a pop-up window, click the link to the article title.
    8. Click Submit to create the article.

    What to do next

    After saving the article record, you can add tags to further organize the article.

    Any additional steps required to publish the article, such as approvals, depend on the publishing workflow for the knowledge base.
    • If there is no approval workflow set up, the article is immediately published.
    • If an approval workflow is set up and Ownership Group is configured, an email notification with a link to the article is sent to the ownership group members assigned to the article for approval.
    • If an approval workflow is set up and Ownership Group is not configured, an email notification with a link to the article is sent to the knowledge base manager for approval.
    • If the article is approved, it is published and an email notification is sent to the author or reviser of the article.
    • If the article is rejected, an email notification is sent to the author or reviser of the article to revise and resubmit it for publishing.
    Related tasks
    • Map related articles
    • Map catalog items related to an article
    Related topics
    • Predictive Intelligence for Knowledge Management

    Tags:

    Feedback
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    Release version
    Choose your release version

      Create a knowledge article

      • Save as PDF Selected topic Topic & subtopics All topics in contents
      • Unsubscribe Log in to subscribe to topics and get notified when content changes.
      • Share this page

      Create a knowledge article

      Knowledge contributors can create and edit knowledge articles within a knowledge base to share information across your organization.

      Before you begin

      You must have Can Contribute access to at least one active knowledge base.

      To view an article template, you must activate the article templates feature and enable the desired templates.

      About this task

      Users with at least one role can create and edit knowledge articles. These users are known as knowledge contributors. Users without any role can read articles and submit feedback, but cannot create or edit articles.

      If you try to create an article with more than 2 MB of data, the article might fail to create because of the Now Platform limitation.

      Some knowledge bases may allow only certain users to contribute. For example, a member of the IT department can create knowledge articles in the IT knowledge base, such as desktop support information or articles describing company IT processes.

      Procedure

      1. There are three ways of creating knowledge articles.
        • Navigate to Self-Service > Knowledge and click the Create an Article icon.
        • Navigate to Knowledge > Articles > Create New.
        • From the Knowledge Management homepage, click the Overflow icon and then Create Article.
      2. On the Create new article page, select a knowledge base.
        The list of article templates to select in the next step is filtered according to the article templates available for the selected knowledge base.
        Note:

        On the Create new article page, you can select to Switch to older version of this page or Switch to updated version of this page (recommended).

      3. Select an article template.
      4. Click Next.
        The Knowledge form is displayed based on the article template selected.
      5. Fill in the fields on the form, as appropriate.
        Table 1. Knowledge form
        Field Description
        Knowledge Base The knowledge base selected for this article.
        Note: An article can only be associated with one knowledge base.

        You can change the knowledge base, but only if the selected article template is available in the knowledge base.

        Category The category for this article. Select a Knowledge Base before you can select a category. Articles without a category appear on the knowledge homepage in the (empty) category.
        Ownership Group The ownership group for this knowledge article. An ownership group consists of a group of members and a manager who are responsible for approvals, ensuring article quality, and feedback tasks. Ownership groups can publish, edit, and retire knowledge articles that they are associated with.
        Note: If no ownership group is assigned, the article automatically goes to the knowledge administrator and knowledge manager for approval.
        Language Language in which you are creating the article. The list is populated based on the languages enabled for the selected knowledge base. This field appears only when the I18N:Knowledge Management Internationalization Plugin v2 plugin (com.glideapp.knowledge.i18n2) is activated. For more information, see I18N - Knowledge internationalization.
        Published The date this knowledge article was published. This value is set when the article is published.
        Valid to The date this knowledge article expires. Articles do not appear in search results after the Valid to date or if the Valid to date is blank.

        The default value of the Valid to field is derived from the Article Validity field configured for the knowledge base (see Create a knowledge base). The Valid to date starts from the date the article was created until the number of days specified in the Article Validity field. If the Article Validity field is blank, the default date in the Valid to field for the knowledge article is set to January 1, 2100. An article author or editor can select whether to keep or change the default Valid to date.

        Note: If the system date format or user preferences is set to use yy year format, you might face issues when the Valid to date is set to the default date. Contact your system administrator or modify the user preferences to use a date format with the yyyy year format. For more information, see Global date and time field format and Personalize the system date format topics.
        Version Version of the article. This field appears only when the article versioning feature is enabled. For more information, see Article versioning.
        Parent Number of the article that represents the base language article. This setting keeps translations of the same article related to each other. Consider choosing the same language consistently for the parent article. This field appears only when the I18N:Knowledge Management Internationalization Plugin v2 plugin (com.glideapp.knowledge.i18n2) is activated. For more information, see I18N - Knowledge internationalization.
        Note: The Parent field contains the first version of the parent article only. This field is used by the translation management feature to maintain the relationship between the source article and its translations.
        Article type The type of article, either HTML or wiki.
        Note: This field is only visible in the standard template.
        Workflow [Read-Only] The publication state of the article, such as Draft, In Review, or Published. When inserting a new article from an existing article, the state of the new article is reset to Draft.
        Source The task this knowledge article was created in response to, if any. This field is set automatically when you create the knowledge article from a task record.
        Attachment link Check box for downloading an attached file automatically when a user accesses the article, instead of opening the article view. Add one or more attachments to the article to use this option.
        Note: You may attach multiple files, but most web browsers permit users to download only the first one. To ensure download of all the files, bundle them into an archive, such as with WinZip, and attach the archive. The Attachment link option applies to articles accessed from search links only. Articles accessed from links within other knowledge articles will not automatically download an attached file.
        Display attachments Check box for displaying attachments to users viewing this knowledge article. Attachments appear below the article text. Add one or more attachments to the article to use this option.
        Short description The title of the article. This title appears when browsing and searching knowledge, and at the top of the article.
        Note: If contextual search is enabled, the knowledge articles similar to the entered short description text appear in the Knowledge results section.
        Article body Content for the article. Use the HTML editor to create content. A preview of the content appears when browsing and searching knowledge.
      6. (Optional) To search for similar articles, type in the Related Search field or continue with the default text in the Knowledge Results section. If the Knowledge results section is not displayed on the Knowledge form, a system administrator can configure the form layout to add the Contextual Search Results field to the form.
        • To find knowledge articles that have high text similarity with the entered search text, choose Similar Articles (ML).
          Note: This option is available only when the Predictive Intelligence feature is enabled and your system administrator has trained the similarity solution for Knowledge Management. For more information, see Train the similarity solution for Knowledge Management to find related articles.
        • To find knowledge articles that match the entered search text, choose Search Articles.
      7. (Optional) To view the entire article in a pop-up window, click the link to the article title.
      8. Click Submit to create the article.

      What to do next

      After saving the article record, you can add tags to further organize the article.

      Any additional steps required to publish the article, such as approvals, depend on the publishing workflow for the knowledge base.
      • If there is no approval workflow set up, the article is immediately published.
      • If an approval workflow is set up and Ownership Group is configured, an email notification with a link to the article is sent to the ownership group members assigned to the article for approval.
      • If an approval workflow is set up and Ownership Group is not configured, an email notification with a link to the article is sent to the knowledge base manager for approval.
      • If the article is approved, it is published and an email notification is sent to the author or reviser of the article.
      • If the article is rejected, an email notification is sent to the author or reviser of the article to revise and resubmit it for publishing.
      Related tasks
      • Map related articles
      • Map catalog items related to an article
      Related topics
      • Predictive Intelligence for Knowledge Management

      Tags:

      Feedback

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