What is Knowledge Management
Knowledge Management allows users to create, edit, and view Knowledge articles to share information across the organization in a centralized location
Knowledge articles exist within a single Knowledge Base, which is managed by one or more Knowledge Managers
Administrators and those with the knowledge_admin role can create multiple Knowledge Bases
A Service Level Agreement (SLA) defines a set amount of time for a Task to reach a certain condition, the table(s) to access, and what type of SLA is being evaluated
SLA's include actions that can be triggered at different times during its life cycle
if the task SLA does not reach the condition, the task is marked breached
SLA are represented by a record stored in the SLA [contract._sla] table
With Knowledge Management, each organization can have their own Knowledge Base with flexible controls over who can see the information and who can help contribute.
Users can browse and search Knowledge using a Knowledge Homepage or use contextual search from other ServiceNow applications, so users can help themselves troubleshoot their issue.
To view Knowledge content, navigate to Self-Service> Knowledge to displays knowledge articles organized by Knowledge Base and Category, as well as Featured Content, and popular articles (Most Useful and Most Viewed).
From the Knowledge homepage you can browse and search for articles, then submit feedback on those articles if desired.
NOTE: You must have at least one ServiceNow role to contribute content.
Types of SLAs
- Service Leval Agreement
- Operational Level Agreement OLA
- Underpinning contract UC
Several major components work together to power the Service Level Agreements plugin:
• SLA Definition: The record which defines the conditions that trigger the SLA
• Task SLA: The individual instances of the SLAs associated with particular tasks
• SLA Workflow: Workflow powers events or actions based on the SLA definition and is designed to be used over and over
• SLA Automation: The Business Rule and Scheduled Job that automate the SLA
• SLA Conditions and Script Include: A Script Include and reference record that can be used to customize the transitions between different SLA states
The Task SLA [task_sla] table stores each of the individual SLAs attached to particular tasks. Unlimited SLAs can be running against a record but SLAs can only run against a table that extends the Task table.
Types of SLAs: While each type of Service Level Agreement may involve different stakeholders, their basic structure in the tool is the same, they track things you want tracked. The only difference between SLAs, OLAs, and Underpinning Contracts is the Type field on the Task SLA form. These SLA types basically all behave the same way. • An Operational Level Agreement (OLA) defines how departments work together to meet the service level requirements documented in an SLA • An Underpinning Contract (UC) is a type of SLA that defines and monitors the guarantees established with an outside supplier; it is a tool for supplier management
When defining a Service Level Agreement, there are many important fields including:
• Duration type: You can choose a specific duration from the list, or you can define your own. The SLA performs the calculations and sets a day and time as the deadline for the SLA. Typically, you would apply User specified duration.
• Duration: When User specified duration is selected from the Duration Type list, an administrator can define the number of days and hours of the timer for the SLA.
• Schedule: Defines what is calculated as hours in a work day and number of days in a work week to use for the SLA. Before you begin to look at how to calculate conditions for the scheduling of the SLAs, you can check to see what platform schedules have been set up for hours per work day and the number of days in the work week.
• Timezone source: Specify the time zone for the SLA. The SLA definition's time zone is used when creating Task SLAs if the Use the following time zone for SLA property is selected in Service Level Management> Properties> SLA Engine. The time zone can be definition, schedule, location, or configuration item