Searching the Help
To search for information in the Help, type a word or phrase in the Search box. When you enter a group of words, OR is inferred. You can use Boolean operators to refine your search.
Results returned are case insensitive. However, results ranking takes case into account and assigns higher scores to case matches. Therefore, a search for "cats" followed by a search for "Cats" would return the same number of Help topics, but the order in which the topics are listed would be different.
Words and Phrases
| Search for | Example | Results |
|---|---|---|
| A single word | cat
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Topics that contain the word "cat". You will also find its grammatical variations, such as "cats". |
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A phrase. You can specify that the search results contain a specific phrase. |
"cat food" (quotation marks) |
Topics that contain the literal phrase "cat food" and all its grammatical variations. Without the quotation marks, the query is equivalent to specifying an OR operator, which finds topics with one of the individual words instead of the phrase. |
Using Boolean Operators
| Search for | Operator | Example |
|---|---|---|
|
Two or more words in the same topic |
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| Either word in a topic |
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| Topics that do not contain a specific word or phrase |
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| Topics that contain one string and do not contain another | ^ (caret) |
cat ^ mouse
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| A combination of search types | ( ) parentheses |
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Knowledge Management integrations
Knowledge Management integrates with Service Desk, Incident Management, and Problem Management to help meet your business needs. When Knowledge Management is integrated with each of these Service Manager modules, users can do the following:
- Starting at Service Desk, users responding to an Interaction record can search for similar interaction records with solutions.
- Users updating Incident records can search for similar issues with solutions in the knowledgebases.
- When working on Problem records, users can perform the following tasks:
- search for similar problems, incidents, known errors, or knowledge documents
- use the resolution from an existing resolved issue in a knowledgebase as a solution for the problem
- use the information from a problem resolution to create a new knowledge document
Knowledge Management integration with Service Desk Interaction
Knowledge Management integrates with Service Desk so that users responding to an Interaction record can search for similar interaction records with solutions. The knowledge search uses the description by the Service Desk user to search for the knowledgebases for similar interaction records with solutions. When searching for knowledge, Knowledge Management uses fields defined in the integration mapping for searches.
The search results display a list of relevant documents. The user can view each document and then has the option of using the text from one the documents as a resolution for the original Interaction record. If the user chooses to use a solution, the system automatically populates the resolution field in the Interaction record with data from the field mapped to the resolution field. The Use Solution option is available from knowledge documents and knowledge candidates with a workaround or resolution.
Note If the knowledge document is a working copy of a published document, the Use Solution button does not appear because the system views it as a temporary document. However, you can usually find the published version in the hitlist and use that as a solution.
In addition to searching for knowledge, the out-of-box mapping allows those users with appropriate privileges to create solutions and author knowledge documents from resolved Interaction records. For example, if in your search you find a knowledge document that includes in the description a resolution for the call, you can select the Create Knowledge option to begin authoring a new knowledge document. The field mappings for the knowledgebase determine which fields in the knowledge document are populated with data from the record.
Knowledge Management integration with Incident Management
Knowledge Management integrates with Incident Management so that users updating incidents can search for similar issues with solutions in the knowledgebases. The knowledge search uses the incident description to search. When searching for knowledge, Knowledge Management uses what is mapped by the integration field mappings to search each knowledgebase. This mapping specifies the fields and tables to search in the knowledgebases to which the user has access. For example in the out-of-box system, a user with browse access in Service Desk and Incident Management can view all relevant Incident and Interaction records in a search and those knowledge documents in categories to which the user has access.
The search results display a list of relevant documents. The user can view each document and then has the option of displaying and then using the text in one of the documents as a resolution to the Incident record. If the user chooses to use a resolved record, the system automatically populates the solution in the record based on the record mapping being reviewed for the knowledgebase. For example, if in a search you find an Incident record that includes a resolution, you can use Use Solution to copy the data from the resolution or workaround field to insert it into the solution (resolution field) of the open Incident record.
You can use Create Knowledge to contribute a new knowledge document from a resolved Incident record so that the data in the mapped fields is used in the knowledge document. The field mappings and the document type determine which fields in the knowledge document are populated with data from the resolved record.
The field mappings specify:
- The fields passed from the incident to the search
- The fields passed from a knowledgebase record to the incident
- The fields passed from an Incident record to create a knowledge document
Note The Use Solution option is available from knowledge documents, Incident and Interaction knowledge candidates with resolutions, and Known Error and Problem knowledge candidates with workarounds.
Knowledge Management integration with Problem Management
The Knowledge Management integration with Problem Management enables users to perform the following tasks:
- Search for similar Problems, Incidents, Known Errors, or knowledge documents
- Use the resolution from an existing resolved issue in a knowledgebase as a solution for the problem
- Use the information from a problem resolution to create a new knowledge document
When searching for knowledge, Knowledge Management uses the fields mapped in the Integration Mapping function for searches. This mapping specifies the fields and tables to search in the knowledgebases to which a user has access. The user can view each document and then has the option of using one of the resolutions as a resolution to the problem. If the user chooses to use a solution or workaround, the system automatically populates the resolution field in the Problem record.
For example, if in your search you find a Problem record that includes a workaround for the Incident record you are working with, use Use Solution to copy the data from the mapped fields of the rootcause table to insert it into the mapped fields of the Incident record.
Users can also create knowledge to contribute a new knowledge document from a resolved record so that the data in the mapped fields is used in the knowledge document. The field mappings and the document type determine which fields in the knowledge document are populated with data from the resolved record.
Note The Use Solution option is available from knowledge documents, Incident and Interaction knowledge candidates with resolutions, and Known Error and Problem knowledge candidates with workarounds.
Knowledge Management record mapping
The Integration Mapping function enables you to map fields between two tables in Service Manager. This allows users to search, retrieve, and author documents more efficiently since data is shared between operations.
In the out-of-box system, there are record maps predefined for the incidents, knownerror, probsummary, and rootcause tables. The Integration Mapping function provides a form for mapping fields, searching, retrieval, and authoring.
The Map Name field is the name of the mapping. By default the out-of-box mappings are named according to the Service Manager file name they provide a mapping for. If a Map Name other than the Service Manager file name is used, the thread variable $gamapname must be set to the value of the Map Name from the Display Option that is used to call the mapping.
The Source Field in Current Record column specifies the field in Service Manager that is sent to the Knowledge Management Target Search Field. A literal string value can be specified in quotation marks. Any string of characters specified within quotation marks is copied literally (without the quotations) into the Target Search Field.
The Target Search Field column specifies the field in Knowledge Management that receives the data sent from the source field. If a field is specified as a target for more than one source field, the data from the source field is appended (in the order specified in the mapping) into the target field. A value of "QueryString" specified in this column indicates that the data from the source field is sent as part of the non-fielded search string (such as if a user typed into the "Enter your question" box in the Knowledge Management search interface). A value of "contextTag" is used to indicate that the source field value will be used to track all search activity in the kmsearchhistory and kmusagehistory tables.
Note The viewed statistic in kmusagehistory is intended to track documents that were viewed as the result of a search. This indicates if a knowledge document can be found and used in its existing state. If a document is viewed from a URL linked directly to the kmdocument record, the viewed statistic in kmusagehistory is not incremented. You can change this default behavior by specifying a parameter with the URL request. When the parameter is specified, the usage history and view count will be logged and incremented.
Tip The additional parameter to add at the end of the URL query is as follows:
&relatedSystem=URLQuery
Field mappings between the knownerror and kmdocument tables
Note These descriptions are based on the out-of-box field mappings between the knownerror table and kmdocument table. If these field mappings have been modified on your system, the data for the fields on your Contribute New Knowledge form may be different than what this topic describes.
You can create a knowledge document for a known error. When you do this, the out-of-box system provides the following information on the Contribute New Knowledge form for the known error. This information is only available for the knowledge document if it is present in the knownerror table record.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Title | This entry comes from the brief description in the knownerror record. |
| Error Message | This entry comes from the description field in the knownerror record. |
| Cause | This entry comes from the root cause description in the knownerror record. |
| Workaround | This entry comes from the workaround and resolution description in the knownerror record. |
