Knowledge groups

Knowledge groups enable you to collect users into groups that have access to work with the same set of documents. A knowledge group might be the user for a department, or a group of document authors, or a special group of users within your organization such as subject matter experts. All knowledge groups have a unique name, an assigned manager, and a group of operators.

You associate a knowledge group with at least one document category or subcategory to give the members of a knowledge group access to documents in the category or subcategory and all subcategories below it. Access privileges can range from search and view to publishing privileges depending upon what knowledge profile(s) you assign to the category. You assign a knowledge group access to a document category by associating a knowledge profile and its associated knowledge group with a document category.

You should assign a new user to the appropriate knowledge groups when you create an operator record for the user. You can use the Find Related Information icon on the Login Profiles tab of the Operator record form under Knowledge Groups to display a list of defined knowledge groups.

Default knowledge view group

All users are automatically members of the Default Knowledge View Group if the Knowledge Management environment file option, Assign the Default Knowledge View Group to all operators, is checked. This option is checked for the out of box system.

The Default Knowledge View Group is a convenient way to associate all the users in the system with a uniform set of permissions on a document category. For example, if you wanted all the externally published documents under the Human Resources category to be viewable by all users, you could associate the Default Knowledge View Group and the DEFAULT profile with that category.

In the out-of-box system, each document type has a default document view and this default document view has the Default Knowledge View Group assigned to it. This means that if a user has access to the category the document is in, that user can view the document with the default view if there are no other document views available to that user to view the document. However, because the default view has the lowest security level, if another view is available to the user then the higher security view is the view the system uses. By associating the Default Knowledge View Group with each of the document types, there can never be a case where there is a document in that system that cannot be viewed.

The Default Knowledge View Group has a unique ID in the system, so that if the name is changed, the capabilities of the group persists. This means that if you choose to rename this group, the capabilities of the group do not change. All of the users in the system can still view all of the documents in those categories to which this group has access.

Access knowledge group information

User roles: KM Admin or System Administrator

Knowledge groups enable you to collect users into groups that have access to work with the same set of documents. A knowledge group might be the user for a department, a group of document authors, or a special group of users within your organization, such as subject matter experts.

To view the information of a knowledge group, follow these steps:

1. Click Knowledge Management > Administration > Knowledge Groups.
2. Click Search.
3. Click the name of the knowledge group.

Add a user to a knowledge group

User roles: KM Admin, System Administrator

Only a user with a KM ADMIN profile or the System Administrator can add users to knowledge groups. There are two methods for adding a user to a knowledge group.

• In the operator record, on the Login Profiles tab there is a Knowledge Group section for the system administrator to specify the knowledge groups for the user.
• The Knowledge Management > Administration > Knowledge Groups function allows a user with a KM ADMIN profile to add users to a knowledge group.

To add a user to a knowledge group in the operator record, follow these steps:

1. Click System Administration > Ongoing Maintenance > Operators.
2. Click Search.
3. Select an operator.
4. Click the Login Profiles tab.
5. In the Knowledge Groups section use the Fill icon to display a list of the knowledge groups.
6. Select the appropriate knowledge groups.
7. Click Save.
8. Click OK.

To use the Knowledge Group function to add a user to a knowledge group, follow these steps:

1. Click Knowledge Management > Administration > Knowledge Groups.
2. Click Search to display a list of knowledge groups.
3. Click the knowledge group.
4. Type the name of the user in the Operators section, or use the Find or Fill button to locate the user.
5. Click Save.
6. Click OK.
7. Repeat steps 2 to 6 until you have added the user to all of the appropriate knowledge groups.

Add a knowledge group

User role: System Administrator, KM Admin

Knowledge groups enable you to collect users into groups that have access to work with the same set of documents. A knowledge group might be the user for a department, a group of document authors, or a special group of users within your organization, such as subject matter experts.

To create a new knowledge group, follow these steps:

1. Click Knowledge Management > Administration > Knowledge Groups.
2. Type the name of the new knowledge group in Knowledge Group.
3. Type the name of the manager of the knowledge group in Manager Name.
4. Type the names of the members of the knowledge group in the Operators area.
5. Click Add.

To copy and rename an existing knowledge group, follow these steps:

1. Click Knowledge Management > Administration > Knowledge Groups
2. Click Search.
3. Select a knowledge group from the list.
4. Click Copy/Rename.
5. Type a new name for the knowledge group in Knowledge Group.
6. Select Copy or Rename.
7. Click Finish.
8. Type a new name of the manager of the knowledge group or keep the current manager.
9. Type the names of the members of the knowledge group or keep the current members in the Operators area.
10. Click Save and the OK.

Assign a knowledge group access to a document category

User role: System Administrator, KMAdmin

All documents in the knowledgebase are assigned to a document category. Categories for knowledge documents are ordered hierarchies. The document categories order documents into top-level categories and subcategories. You can assign a knowledge group access to a specific category.

To assign a knowledge group access to a document category, follow these steps:

1. Click Knowledge Management > Configuration > KM Document Categories.
2. When you have a large number of top-level categories, use the category filter to display only those top-level categories you are interested in viewing. Type the name of the top-level category in the Category filter text box.
3. Use the Category Search tab to search a list of all occurrences of a category or subcategory name. You can type the complete name of the category or subcategory you are searching for, or you can type a portion of the name in the Search box. For example, if you are searching for all test categories, you might type tes to see test, test1, and testall.
4. Select the category or subcategory in the list and click Details.
5. Click the Permissions tab.
6. Click the Add button.
7. Select the user profile for the knowledge group to which you want to assign access to the category you selected.
8. Double-click the user profile you selected.
9. Select the knowledge group you want to assign to the document category.
10. Double-click the knowledge group you selected.
11. Click the Permissions tab to verify your selections.

Determine which knowledge groups can contribute documents to a category

User role: System Administrator, KMAdmin

To view which knowledge groups have access to a document category, follow these steps:

1. Click Knowledge Management > Configuration > KM Document Categories.
2. When you have a large number of top-level categories, use the category filter to display only those top-level categories you are interested in viewing. Type the name of the top-level category in the Category filter text box.
3. Use the Category Search tab to search a list of all occurrences of a category or subcategory name. You can type the complete name of the category or subcategory you are searching for, or you can type a portion of the name in the Search text box. For example, if you were searching for all test categories you might type tes to see test, test1, and testall.
4. Select the category or subcategory in the list and click Details.
5. Click the Permissions tab.
6. View the profiles and knowledge groups for the category.

Assign rights for publishing a document for a document category

To assign rights for publishing a document for a document category, follow these steps:

1. Identify the document category or categories to which you want to assign the document.
2. Identify the knowledge management profile and document group that have publishing privileges for the category or categories.
3. Make sure that the users who will have the document publishing rights are members of the appropriate document group.

For example, to give a user the ability to publish documents for external users in HR category for the out-of-box system, you would make the user a member of the HR KCS III document group.