BMC Remedy Knowledge Management 7.2 - Planning and Configuration Guide

8/20/2019 BMC Remedy Knowledge Management 7.2 - Planning and Configuration Guide

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www.bmc.com

BMC Remedy Knowledge Management 7.2

Planning and ConfigurationGuide

December 2007


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Customer Support

You can obtain technical support by using the Support page on the BMC Software website or by contacting CustomerSupport by telephone or email. To expedite your inquiry, please see “Before Contacting BMC Software.”

Support website

You can obtain technical support from BMC Software 24 hours a day, 7 days a week atht t p: / / www. bmc. com/ suppor t _home. From this website, you can:

Read overviews about support services and programs that BMC Software offers. Find the most current information about BMC Software products. Search a database for problems similar to yours and possible solutions. Order or download product documentation. Report a problem or ask a question. Subscribe to receive email notices when new product versions are released. Find worldwide BMC Software support center locations and contact information, including email addresses, fax

numbers, and telephone numbers.

Support by telephone or email

In the United States and Canada, if you need technical support and do not have access to the Web, call 800 537 1813 orsend an email message to cust omer _suppor t @bmc. com. (In the Subject line, enterSupI D: < y o ur S up p o r t Co nt r a c t I D> , such as SupI D: 12345.) Outside the United States and Canada, contact your localsupport center for assistance.

Before contacting BMC Software

Have the following information available so that Customer Support can begin working on your issue immediately:

Product information

— Product name— Product version (release number)— License number and password (trial or permanent)

Operating system and environment information

— Machine type— Operating system type, version, and service pack— System hardware configuration— Serial numbers— Related software (database, application, and communication) including type, version, and service pack or

maintenance level

Sequence of events leading to the problem

Commands and options that you used

Messages received (and the time and date that you received them)

— Product error messages— Messages from the operating system, such as f i l e system f ul l— Messages from related software

http://www.bmc.com/support_homemailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.bmc.com/support_home


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License key and password information

If you have a question about your license key or password, contact Customer Support through one of the followingmethods:

Email cust omer _support @bmc. com. (In the Subject line, enter SupI D: < y o ur S up p o r t Co nt r a c t I D> , such asSupI D: 12345.)

In the United States and Canada, call 800 537 1813. Outside the United States and Canada, contact your local supportcenter for assistance.

Submit a new issue at ht t p: / / www. bmc. com/ suppor t _home.

mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.bmc.com/support_homehttp://www.bmc.com/support_homemailto:[email protected]


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Contents 5

Contents

Preface 9

Audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9About the integration with ITSM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9Related documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Chapter 1 What is BMC Remedy Knowledge Management? 11

Knowledge Management overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12BMC Remedy Knowledge Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Features and benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Best practices in knowledge management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13Organizational alignment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13Issue resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14Knowledge base quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15Rights and visibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Performance assessment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Chapter 2 BMC Remedy Knowledge Management architecture 21

System architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22System components. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Functional architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25Functional components. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Chapter 3 Planning your implementation 31

Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32Content segmentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Access control groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34Visibility groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Partitioning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37Categorization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40Document templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Solution workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41Searching for solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Search features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42Ranking algorithms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

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6 Planning and Configuration Guide

Customizing templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44Email templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44Document templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Creating themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55Extending the editor and viewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Sample custom code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56Declaring custom control in the templates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Retrieving XML data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Chapter 4 Configuring options in the configuration settings screen 61

Configuration settings overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62Accessing the configuration settings screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63Modifying configuration parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

General settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64Database connection settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65Hummingbird SearchServer connection settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65Authentication settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66Remedy settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66File paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67Search results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67Notifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68Load balancing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68System configuration password. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Chapter 5 Configuring options in the configuration file 69

Configuration file overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Editing the configuration file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70Configuration options table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

RKM_boot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73Application element. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74SearchEngine element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80Database element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81i18n element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

RKM_global. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82Security element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83Visibility_groups element. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84Search element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

DateFormat element. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85Appearance element. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86Categories element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

CTI element. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86Indexing element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Table element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89FilePaths element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90Email_templates element. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91DocumentTemplates element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Document element. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92


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Workflow element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92Status element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Queries element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93Query element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

EventTypes element. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Event element. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98Reports element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Report element. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Chapter 6 Managing your system with the System Settings tool 101

System Settings options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102Accessing the System Settings tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103Defining access control groups, visibility groups, and users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Adding and editing access control groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105Adding visibility groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105Adding users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106Editing users. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Updating system files and tables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107Resetting AR System cache files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107Building Hummingbird SearchServer tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108Initializing database tables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109Updating system files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Chapter 7 System administrator tasks 111

Backing up and recovering data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112Default installation folders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Backing up your data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112Backing up application files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113Recovering your system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Building the Hummingbird SearchServer tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114Updating the spell checker dictionary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Adding dictionary files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115Modifying an existing dictionary file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

Using a thesaurus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116Creating a thesaurus source file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116Compiling the thesaurus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119Testing the thesaurus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

Using a stop file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120Modifying the stop file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Changing the solution ID number. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121Adding general legacy data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122Implementing multiple language support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123Using AR System workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Mixed mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125Black box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125Workflow filter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

Implementing automatic reset of AR System cache . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127Ranking solutions by usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128


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Using the search summary option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129Indexing AR System forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Adding indexes to the configuration file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131Configuring AR System to update the indexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

Indexing external sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

Adding the external index to the configuration file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136Configuring load balancing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137Configuring for multi-tenancy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Enable multi-tenancy in the configuration file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139Defining companies in the RKMConvert configuration file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140Running the RKMConvert utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

Index 143


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Preface 9

Preface

The BMC Remedy Knowledge Management 7.2 product is a knowledge baseapplication that you use from within BMC Action Request System (AR System) orfrom a stand-alone web environment. If you integrate BMC Remedy KnowledgeManagement with BMC Remedy IT Service Management (BMC Remedy ITSM),you can use either the web interface or the AR System interface, or both.

BMC Remedy Knowledge Management is installed with a default configurationthat you can modify after the installation is complete. You can edit theconfiguration file directly to configure parameters, such as file paths, bootinformation, and workflow. You can use the configuration settings screen in theuser interface to define system settings, and enable certain features.

This document contains detailed information for planning your BMC RemedyKnowledge Management implementation, and includes important considerationsand guidelines for configuring your system. It also describes the concepts ofknowledge management and provides the best practices for establishing aknowledge management strategy for your organization. This document describes

how to configure BMC Remedy Knowledge Management using the options in theconfiguration file and the configuration settings screen in the user interface.

Audience

This document is intended for system and knowledge administrators who areresponsible for configuring the knowledge management system. You must haveBMC Remedy Knowledge Management installed before performing any of theconfiguration tasks in this document.

About the integration with ITSM

BMC Remedy Knowledge Management integrates with BMC Remedy ITSM Suiteversion 6.0 or 7.0. The BMC Remedy ITSM Suite includes several applications thatrun in conjunction with AR System and share a common database. Severaldifferences exist between the ITSM versions and how they interact with BMCRemedy Knowledge Management.


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BMC Remedy Knowledge Management

BMC Remedy ITSM 6.0: BMC Remedy Knowledge Management integrateswith the BMC Remedy Help Desk application. The underlying form is the HelpDesk form in BMC Remedy Administrator. You modify the Help Desk form toinclude knowledge management functionality. The form appears as the HelpDesk form in BMC Remedy User. BMC Remedy Knowledge Management

supports the single-tier categorization structure of ITSM 6.0 and uses Category,Type, and Item (CTI) lists throughout the application. BMC Remedy KnowledgeManagement can also be integrated with the Requester console.

BMC Remedy ITSM 7.0: BMC Remedy Help Desk has been replaced with theBMC Remedy Service Desk solution, which contains the BMC Remedy IncidentManagement and BMC Remedy Problem Management applications. BMCRemedy Knowledge Management integrates with both Incident Managementand Problem Management. The underlying forms are the Help Desk andProblem Investigation forms in BMC Remedy Administrator (the Help Deskform appears as the Incident form in BMC Remedy User). You modify both ofthese forms to include knowledge management functionality. BMC Remedy

Knowledge Management supports the multi-tier categorization structure ofITSM 7.0 and uses Product and Operational category lists throughout theapplication. BMC Remedy Knowledge Management can also be integrated withthe Requester console.

Related documentation

The following table lists the documentation available for BMC RemedyKnowledge Management 7.2.

The documentation is available on the BMC Remedy Knowledge Managementproduct installation CD and on the Customer Support website at:

ht t p: / / www. bmc. com/ suppor t _home.

Title Description Audience

BMC RemedyKnowledge Management7.2 Release Notes

New features and differences. Administrators, Users

BMC RemedyKnowledge Management

7.2 Installation andIntegration Guide

Procedures for installing BMCRemedy Knowledge Management

and integrating with your system.

Administrators

BMC RemedyKnowledge Management7.2 Planning andConfiguration Guide

Knowledge management conceptsand best practices. Explains how toplan for and configure BMC RemedyKnowledge Management.

Administrators

BMC RemedyKnowledge Management7.2 User’s Guide

Information about using BMCRemedy Knowledge Managementfrom the AR System interface and thestand-alone web interface.

Users

http://www.bmc.com/support_homehttp://www.bmc.com/support_home


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Chapter

1 What is BMC RemedyKnowledge Management?This section describes knowledge management concepts and best practices.

The following topics are provided:

Knowledge Management overview (page 12)

BMC Remedy Knowledge Management (page 12)

Best practices in knowledge management (page 13)


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Knowledge Management overview

Knowledge Management (KM) is the process of identifying, gathering, managing,and using knowledge within an organization. Ideally, this knowledge is stored in

a single repository where it can be maintained, managed, and retrieved whenneeded. Knowledge Management has become increasingly adopted in the servicecenter industry due to the value it provides to service centers, their customers, andthe companies the service centers represent. In a call center environment, effectiveKnowledge Management can provide the following benefits:

Increase in first contact resolution

Lower cost per support contact

Improvement in analyst productivity

Consistent set of answers

Decrease in the number of escalated tickets

Central repository of knowledge

Accelerated learning curve for new analysts

Reduction or elimination of duplicate efforts


The BMC Remedy Knowledge Management application allows users to author

and search for solutions in a knowledge base. It includes a comprehensive editorwith extensive editing tools and a robust search engine that allows users to searchfor solutions using natural language or Boolean searches. BMC RemedyKnowledge Management can also be integrated with ITSM to allow analysts tomanage incidents and knowledge from the same interface.

Features and benefits

BMC Remedy Knowledge Management provides the following features and benefits:

Rich text authoring: Solution authors have access to extensive rich text HTMLediting tools.

Searching and security: Users can search across multiple sources. The powerfulsearch engine allows for simple searching with natural language query.

Self-help environment: Users can search for their own solutions and createtheir own trouble tickets.


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Best practices in knowledge management

Enforceable authoring process and notifications: Solution authors follow anauthoring process. This guarantees that knowledge is consistent, meetscorporate standards, and is published in a timely manner.

News flashes and watch lists: Users can see important notices and be notifiedof changes or new solutions created in their category of interest.

Goals

Use BMC Remedy Knowledge Management to achieve the following objectives:

Reduce training costs throughout the enterprise.

Provide consistent and accurate answers through a single point of access.

Reduce call length by making solutions easily accessible.

Provide self-service to reduce call volume.

Capture valuable knowledge to reduce turnover costs.


According to the Knowledge-Centered Support (KCS) strategy developed by theConsortium for Service Innovation™, best practices for Knowledge Managementinclude the following five areas:

Organizational alignment

Issue resolution Knowledge base quality

Rights and visibilities

Performance assessment

Organizational alignment

When you are considering a knowledge management initiative, the organizationmust first understand and accept the Knowledge Management premise. The

following groups are the stakeholders in the KM arena: Executives: Executives in your organization should be advocates of KM. At the

very minimum, the executive-level person over the service center mustunderstand the following concepts:

How KM affects the bottom line of the company.

How KM increases customer satisfaction.

How KM improves employee job satisfaction.

Short-term and long-term affects of KM.


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Management: The service center manager typically initiates the KM effort. Inthis role, the service center manager is responsible for the KM implementation.That person must understand the following concepts:

How KM improves the service center performance as a whole.

How KM improves the performance of each analyst. How to implement KM.

How KM affects the service center culture.

Analysts: Analysts are largely responsible for the success of the KMimplementation. They are the users of the system and must endure the process,policy, and cultural changes. For analysts to be successful in their efforts, theymust understand the following concepts:

How KM affects their performance.

How their individual performance affects the success of the service center and

organization.

How KM affects their job satisfaction.

Issue resolution

The main objective of KM is to increase the analysts’ ability to resolve issuesquickly, accurately, and consistently. Issue tracking tools are designed to trackhistory, not resolve issues or solve problems. Knowledge, however, resolves issuesand solves problems. When creating a knowledge base, make sure that theknowledge in your knowledge base is current and that it reflects the collective

knowledge in your organization.

To accomplish these objectives, implement the following best practices:

Capture knowledge in the workflow.

Search the knowledge base early and often.

Use legacy knowledge effectively.

Capture knowledge in the workflow

Capturing knowledge within the workflow allows you to discover new

knowledge as it occurs. The best place to discover this knowledge is while you areon the call with a customer. This is where an analyst can uncover the most currentand relevant knowledge about an issue. The knowledge that analysts capture intheir normal workflow increases the knowledge of the organization and keeps theknowledge base current.

As analysts capture knowledge within their normal workflow processes, they arealso able to capture that knowledge in the customer's context or terminology. Ifanalysts try to capture that knowledge after completing the call, at the end of theday, or once a week, they lose the original context. Describing the issue in thecustomer's terminology makes that solution easier to find, especially when thatsolution is on a customer self-service site.


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Search early, search often

The key to maintaining a viable and valuable knowledge base is to encourage andtrain analysts to search the knowledge base early and often for resolutions tocustomer issues. Searching helps to identify knowledge gaps in your content, and

facilitates your ability to fill those gaps.Analysts should search the knowledge base for a resolution to a customer issueeven if they already know the problem resolution. This might seem counter-intuitive, but, if an analyst chooses to provide a resolution without searching theknowledge base then one of two results can occur:

If the solution does exist in the knowledge base for that specific issue, the valueof that solution is not augmented by the analyst reusing the solution.

If the solution does not exist in the knowledge base, it remains absent from theknowledge base even after the analyst resolves that customer's issue.

Searching early and often reduces the collective time it takes for your analysts toresolve customer issues and identify knowledge gaps. Using solutions in theknowledge base assures that your analysts provide accurate and consistentresolutions to your customers which increases customer satisfaction.

Use legacy knowledge effectively

Pure best practices suggest that you should remove legacy knowledge from yourknowledge base and allow only workflow to generate all knowledge for yourknowledge base. The other extreme is to rely only upon legacy content to resolveissues. BMC Software recommends a middle-ground approach where you use a

combination of both legacy content and workflow generated content.

Knowledge base quality

The first obstacle for most people embarking on KM is the belief that KM is clean,that solutions are perfect, and that only pristine and perfect content should enterthe knowledge base. The reality is that KM is not about perfection; it is aboutevolution. Consider the following basic principles:

Knowledge Management is messy: Perfect solutions do not exist. Solutionsshould be improved continuously and analysts should always feel a sense of

ownership for every solution they view. Knowledge is a work in progress. Complete solutions are obsolete solutions: A complete solution is one that is

no longer being refined. When a solution reaches that state, it is no longer beingviewed, modified, or used. As long as a solution in the knowledge base is beingused, analysts should review and refine the solution to make it better.

Content review should be demand-driven: Your whole service center is basedon a demand-driven model. Analysts resolve issues as customers present them.Your KM review process should be the same. You should review only thosesolutions that are reused. Your solution review process should be seamlesslyintegrated into your analysts' normal workflow.


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Knowledge base quality is based on the following KM best practices:

Define quality for your organization.

Establish a content standard for authoring solutions.

Adopt a solution structure.

Identify workflow states.

Implement a demand-driven review model.

Invest in education and coaching.

Defining quality

To attain quality solutions, you must first define quality. Without a formaldefinition of what quality means for your organization, each analyst defines it forthemselves, and the result is less than quality solutions.

The quality of a solution is influenced by the intended audience. For example, asolution that is accessible only by internal analysts does not need to be in the samequality state as a solution accessible by external customers. Misspellings can bepermissible for one audience but not the other.

Establishing a content standard

When defining quality for your organization, you must also establish a content orauthoring standard. This content standard should include authoring issuesregarding solution text format and style.

Solution formatConsider the following items when establishing a standard solution format:

Solution title: How the solution title is constructed and the information itshould include.

Issue description and resolution: What information should be included in thedescription and resolution fields.

Bullets and numbered lists: How and when to use lists (instead of paragraphs).

Text formatting: When to use character formatting, such as bold, italic, andunderline.

Solution style

Consider the following items when establishing a solution style:

Preferred vocabulary and voice

Use of acronyms

Use of graphics

Use and format of links

Key words


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This standard gives authors a set of rules to work within. When establishing yourcontent standard, keep it simple. Simplicity increases compliance, accuracy, andspeed from your analysts, and assures consistency, accuracy, and speed for yourcustomers.

Adopting a solution structureYou must also adopt a solution structure and then provide actual solutionexamples that illustrate your organization's definition of quality within theframework of that structure. Your KM tool should provide you with solutiontemplates to simplify this part of the process. Minimally, the structure of yoursolutions should include the following sections:

Issue description

Environment description

Resolution description

Identifying workflow states

Mandated review processes define activities or steps that a solution must gothrough before it is allowed in the knowledge base. KM best practices direct youto establish a workflow process that is simple and effective for your organization.For example, the following steps make up a simple workflow for solution review:

Draft

Approved

Publish

Implementing a demand-driven review model

Your review process should be demand driven, rather than mandated. The basicconcept behind a demand-driven review model is to review only those solutionsthat get reused.

In a mandated review process, every authored solution must go through each stepin the review process before it can be included in the knowledge base. An analystcreates an article and submits it to the next step in the workflow. The next personreviews the solution, performs the tasks for that review level, and promotes it tothe next step. This continues through each step of the workflow until the solutionis published in the knowledge base.

A mandated review workflow requires more resources and time when comparedwith a demand-driven model. Industry statistics state that 80 percent of allsolutions are not reused and, therefore, forcing all solutions through a reviewprocess is wasteful. Mandated review processes also inherently create bottlenecks.Bottlenecks equate to latency between authoring a solution and when it is availablefor reuse. This translates into a knowledge base that is not current.


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In a demand-driven review model, you review only the solutions that are reused.As analysts research and resolve customer issues, they view solutions and evaluatewhether a given solution resolves the customer's issue.

When analysts view a solution, they are able to check accuracy, compliance, andapplicability to the customer issue. If that solution needs to be fixed, enhanced, or

refined, they should have the rights to either modify the solution or submit anupdate request to someone who has rights to modify it.

To achieve this level of review, each analyst must have a sense of ownership foreach solution they view, whether they authored the solution or not. This collectiveownership fosters a customer-centric focus, and enables your knowledge base toevolve faster and remain relevant.

Investing in education and coaching

KM best practices promote the concept of education and coaching. Educate your

organization about KM, train coaches, and allow coaches to mentor analysts. Teachthe analysts the content standard and how to author quality solutions. Then,instead of investing in an elaborate, mandated review process, invest in coaching.

Rights and visibility

You must establish roles and permissions for your users, for those who can authorsolutions and those who can view them. KM best practices define roles withassociated rights and visibilities. These roles are:

Author: Searches the knowledge base to find solutions to customer issues,

authors new knowledge solutions, and has a coach to help adhere to contentstandard.

Approver: Searches the knowledge base to find solutions to customer issues,authors (to content standard) and approves new knowledge solutions, modifiesand approves others' solutions.

Coach: Similar to approver, but the primary responsibility is to move authors to be approvers, thus increasing the number of quality solution authors.

Knowledge expert or administrator: Similar to approver, but the primaryresponsibility is to maintain the vitality of the knowledge base by retiringobsolete solutions, checking for duplications, and maintaining the overall

knowledge base.

Except for the knowledge expert or administrator, you can have authors,approvers, and coaches in each tier of your organization. Ideally, you should havemore approvers than authors, which increases your authoring capacity.


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Performance assessment

KM best practices also address the issue of performance assessment. When youimplement a KM strategy, the responsibilities of the analysts change. To assess andreward performance, best practices dictate rewarding results or outcomes. The

following criteria are examples of results that you can measure and reward: Author-to-approver accomplishment (for coaches and analysts)

Time to resolution

Cost per resolution

Customer satisfaction

Although you do not want to set quotas on activities, you should track activities tohave a clear understanding of what is happening within your service center.


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Chapter

2 BMC Remedy KnowledgeManagement architectureThis section explains the BMC Remedy Knowledge Management 7.2 architecture.


System architecture (page 22)

Functional architecture (page 25)


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System architecture

The BMC Remedy Knowledge Management application consists of several basiccomponents that work together to provide a comprehensive knowledge

management solution. The user interface (UI) is the user's window into the systemand is typically delivered using AR System. The AR System server hosts the formsand active links required to control and retrieve information from BMC RemedyKnowledge Management. BMC Remedy Knowledge Management may reside onthe AR System server or its own server and includes the HummingbirdSearchServer indexing engine. Finally, the documents themselves are stored asXML files on the HTTP server.


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System architecture

System components

BMC Remedy Knowledge Management is a Java Server Pages (JSP) 2.0 compliantapplication delivered as a single Web ARrchive (WAR) file. The application iswritten in Java to provide cross-platform deployment capabilities.

BMC Remedy Knowledge Management consists of the following components:

HTTP server

SQL database

File system

Hummingbird SearchServer

Java mail service

Browser interface

Remedy Application Programming Interface (API)

HTTP server

You can install BMC Remedy Knowledge Management on any HTTP server thatprovides a JSP container. You can use your existing mid tier server or a similarlyconfigured server. The BMC Remedy Knowledge Management application issupplied as a WAR file for deployment to that server.

SQL database

BMC Remedy Knowledge Management uses an SQL database to store loginformation used for producing reports. BMC Remedy Knowledge Managementcan also use the database to store user tables and authentication information. Thefollowing databases are supported:

Oracle®

Sybase

Microsoft SQL Server

MySQL

File systemBMC Remedy Knowledge Management uses the file system to store knowledge base solutions, which are individual files that reside in folders on the server.Solution folders are organized under the main data folder and includeattachments, draft, general, news, publish, retired, and versions folders. Thesolutions are stored in XML format to provide greater flexibility and accessibility.The file system also stores BMC Remedy Knowledge Management templates andconfiguration files.


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Hummingbird SearchServer

The Hummingbird SearchServer engine also runs on the knowledge base server.Hummingbird SearchServer is a powerful enterprise search engine that providesreal-time document indexing. It performs all indexing operations on knowledge

base documents and supports more than 200 native document formats.

Java mail service

The Java mail service sends email notifications during the workflow process.Notification processing is an optional component of BMC Remedy KnowledgeManagement. The Java mail service is not included with the BMC RemedyKnowledge Management installation CD. If the Java mail service (JavaMail) is noton your system, download it from Sun at:

ht t p: / / j ava. sun. com

Browser interface

BMC Remedy Knowledge Management has both a browser interface and anAR System interface. You can use the browser interface regardless of whether youintegrate BMC Remedy Knowledge Management with AR System. If you runBMC Remedy Knowledge Management with the AR System, you maintain usersand authentication within AR System.

Remedy API

When you integrate BMC Remedy Knowledge Management with AR System, theRemedy API helps you perform the following functions:

Manage users and authentication.

Obtain category information.

Obtain user lists for workflow.

Provide data exchange between AR System and BMC Remedy KnowledgeManagement.

Configure solution workflow (beyond the supplied default).

Store BMC Remedy Knowledge Management solutions within AR System to

allow Distributed Server Object (DSO) functionality.

http://java.sun.com/http://java.sun.com/


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Functional architecture


The BMC Remedy Knowledge Management application is written in JSP. The webpages it delivers are rendered in Java Script and HTML. The solution documents,

document templates, and configuration files are XML based. BMC RemedyKnowledge Management uses XSLT to transform document solutions into theirvarious forms for editing and viewing, and also provides field-level security onsolution documents.

Functional components

BMC Remedy Knowledge Management consists of the following functionalcomponents:

Templates

Documents

Document editor

Document viewer

Search engine

System security

ITSM integration

Customization

XML data retrieval Globalization

Templates

BMC Remedy Knowledge Management uses a different template for eachknowledge solution type. Each template contains the solution fields and theirattributes, the location of the fields when displayed in the editor and viewer, andthe visibility required for those fields. BMC Remedy Knowledge Managementsupplies default templates for the following solution types:

How to Problem solution

Error message

Reference

Decision tree

You can create your own templates or edit the supplied template files. The cleanand readable schema for templates makes them easy to edit and manipulate.


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NOTE

When integrated with AR System, standard AR System groups are used to definethe privileges for each field. When running stand-alone, the equivalent ofAR System groups can be defined in the BMC Remedy Knowledge Managementdatabase.

Solution documents

BMC Remedy Knowledge Management solution documents are templates filledwith data. These documents can be opened in either the editor or viewer. Like anAR System form, a document can have permissions assigned by group. Thiscreates a document that not only has field-level security, but document-levelsecurity. Document permissions, known as Visibility Groups (VG), are assigned toa document in the document editor.

Document editorThe BMC Remedy Knowledge Management document editor is produced from anXSL transformation against the XML document it is opening. When you open asolution in the editor, BMC Remedy Knowledge Management transforms itthrough XSLT and returns the result as a complex dynamic HTML page that usesfunctionality within the browser. The resulting HTML page is an editor that allowsauthorized users to create and edit documents. In the editor, the document is aform that conforms to the definition in its corresponding template.

For example, the default “How to” template includes the following fields:

Title

Question

Answer

Environment

Categories

Visibility groups

Authoring notes

Users can edit the document through the user interface (like most document

editors), and use standard formatting functions, such as bold, underline, italic,paragraph indenting, bullet points, tables, images, and links.

The transformation process evaluates the permissions of each field against thegroups of the current user to determine which fields to display. The resultingtransformation produces a page that contains only the data the user haspermission for. The user does not have access to fields they do not have permissionto view.

NOTE

The document editor is a browser-based application. It is supported only onInternet Explorer browsers.


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System administrators can extend the functionality of the editor and viewer bywriting custom XSL templates. This XSL code becomes part of the transformationprocess and is inserted into the document at the indicated point within a template.This allows the functionality of the editor or viewer to be extended withoutmaking changes to the core code of the BMC Remedy Knowledge Management

application.

NOTE

The transformation is done on the server. The user never has physical access to theoriginal XML document.

Document viewer

The BMC Remedy Knowledge Management document viewer is similar to thedocument editor. When you open a solution in the viewer, BMC RemedyKnowledge Management transforms it through XSLT and returns an HTML

formatted solution. Like the editor, the transformation evaluates the permissionsof each field against the current user's groups to determine which fields to display.

This allows content within a solution document to be segmented by user group.For example, a document viewed by self-help users might contain Problem andSolution fields, while that same document viewed by a service technician mightcontain Problem, Solution, and Internal Notes fields. A service technician mightneed additional information that is inappropriate for a self-help user to see.

Search engine

When you create a solution, BMC Remedy Knowledge Management instructsHummingbird SearchServer to index that solution so that it can be found whenusers query the knowledge base. The Hummingbird SearchServer index containsinformation about each solution, including the solution’s permissions.

BMC Remedy Knowledge Management provides a user-friendly interface forperforming searches against the indexed data. When a user searches theknowledge base, BMC Remedy Knowledge Management translates the requestand passes it to Hummingbird SearchServer through the JDBC driver.Hummingbird SearchServer returns the results and passes them back to BMCRemedy Knowledge Management in the same manner. BMC Remedy KnowledgeManagement also evaluates the user's groups and builds the request so that only

documents in that user's permission group are returned from the search. A usernever sees any documents returned in the request that they do not have rights toview.

BMC Remedy Knowledge Management returns the search results to the user forselection. When the user selects a document from the search result list, BMCRemedy Knowledge Management opens the document in the document viewer.


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System security

Users must first log in or authenticate to the system to use BMC RemedyKnowledge Management. Three levels of authentication are defined in theconfiguration file:

None (Unsecure): This mode allows users to access the system by entering theirname only. This mode is provided primarily for legacy type access and fororganizations that do not feel any need for their users to log in to the system.

Internal: Authentication is performed at the knowledge managementapplication level. Users must be defined in the BMC Remedy KnowledgeManagement database (rkm) by the system administrator. Users must entertheir ID and password to gain entry to the system. This mode is typically usedin stand-alone environments.

Remedy (Secure): This mode uses the Remedy API to authenticate users. Usermanagement is performed inside of AR System.

All requests for data in the system are authenticated through the configured mode.When a user is initially authenticated, a session ID is established. This ID and othercriteria are evaluated with each request. If a request does not conform to theauthentication rules, the user is denied access to the data and a new login screen isdisplayed. The user can reauthenticate against the system to access the data. Allsecurity validation is performed on the server and only data conforming to therights of the user are returned.

A special case authentication is defined for self-help users. Typically, self-helpusers are not required to authenticate to access data. BMC Remedy KnowledgeManagement provides a user interface with limited access where users can

perform searches without authentication. Only those documents marked as self-help are returned in the result list. Multiple self-help groups can be set up tosegment data.

ITSM integration

BMC Remedy Knowledge Management integrates with ITSM through twomechanisms:

The Remedy API

AR System forms

AR System communicates with BMC Remedy Knowledge Management bymaking URL requests through a view field. BMC Remedy KnowledgeManagement communicates with AR System through data returned in a viewfield, on the URL to that view field, or through the API. Large amounts of data can be exchanged in either direction by passing data to a form that is accessed by bothAR System (through workflow) and BMC Remedy Knowledge Management(through the API).


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Customization

You can customize BMC Remedy Knowledge Management for your environment by modifying the options and variables in the configuration file. You can make thefollowing customizations:

You can configure the look and feel by modifying cascading style sheets andcreating themes. You can create any number of themes. The systemadministrator selects the theme of choice.

You can customize solution documents and define permissions on any fieldwithin the document template.

You can customize BMC Remedy Knowledge Management workflow usingAR System filters.

You can modify AR System workflow objects to change behaviors of BMCRemedy Knowledge Management.

You can write your own XSL templates to extend the functionality of the editoror viewer.

You can use XML data retrieval to change the look and feel at the data levelinstead of at the user interface level.

XML data retrieval

BMC Remedy Knowledge Management allows you to incorporate self-help pagesinto your own portal with XML data retrieval. For example, you might want tomanage access to self-help data by your own portal authentication method. Or,

you might want to exhibit full control over the look and feel of the search resultswindow and the solution document.

With XML data retrieval, the search request is passed on a URL (from the user toBMC Remedy Knowledge Management) and BMC Remedy KnowledgeManagement returns XML data instead of returning the search result page. Thedata returned conforms to the self-help authentication mechanisms.

You can display the resulting XML on your portal, however you choose. You canalso process selected documents in a similar fashion, allowing you to create yourown viewer and display documents according to your needs. Any XML returnedis already prefiltered according to permissions.

In other words, you can use BMC Remedy Knowledge Management as an engine,and use custom applications or HTML pages as the interface.

For more information about configuring XML data retrieval in your system, see“Retrieving XML data” on page 59.


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Chapter

3 Planning yourimplementationThis section describes how to plan for your BMC Remedy KnowledgeManagement implementation.


Security (page 32)

Content segmentation (page 34)

Solution workflow (page 41)

Searching for solutions (page 42)

Customizing templates (page 44)

Creating themes (page 55)

Extending the editor and viewer (page 55)

Retrieving XML data (page 59)


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Security

The BMC Remedy Knowledge Management application is a three-tier enterpriseapplication composed of the following components:

User interface

Business logic

Data access components

The data access layer is secured by the business logic layer, which requires anauthentication token for each transaction. The business logic layer is secured by theuser interface layer, which requires a valid session for each transaction.

Authentication

Authentication is performed at the user interface layer. Every time a user accessesa page, a session ID is passed (either in the query string, the post data, or a cookie).If the session ID is valid, then an authentication token is created with the user'sdetails. If the session ID is invalid, then the user is redirected to a login page thataccepts user credentials. When valid credentials are received, a new session iscreated.


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Security

When planning your BMC Remedy Knowledge Management implementation,you must consider the type of authentication to use. The three types ofauthentication are:

None: Authentication is not used. Users access the stand-alone web interface byopening the BMC Remedy Knowledge Management URL. Users must enter

their name to gain entry to the system but they do not have to enter a password.All users are granted access with user-level permissions. This is the defaultmode of authentication and enables you to make your system operational beforeenforcing security.

Internal: Authentication is performed at the knowledge managementapplication level. Users must be defined in the BMC Remedy KnowledgeManagement database (rkm) by the system administrator. Users must entertheir ID and password to gain entry to the system. This mode is typically usedin stand-alone environments.

Remedy: Authentication is performed at the AR System level. Users must be

defined in AR System by the system administrator. Users must enter their IDand password to gain entry to the system. Users can access BMC RemedyKnowledge Management either through BMC Remedy User or the stand-aloneinterface. This mode is typically used if you are integrating AR System withBMC Remedy Knowledge Management.

NOTE

If you use Remedy authentication, you also use the categorization informationfrom AR System and not the CSV files as used in the stand-alone environment.

You define the authentication type in the configuration file. For more information,

see Chapter 5, “Configuring options in the configuration file.”|


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Content segmentation

BMC Remedy Knowledge Management is a flexible application that allows you tosegment your content so that users see information that is relevant to them. For

example, you might have information that is appropriate for one external groupand other information that is for internal use only. Entire solutions can be markedas viewable (or not) as well as individual fields in those solutions. You can alsodefine which users can author content for a particular audience.

Content segmentation is obtained by defining privileges (who can do what) andvisibilities (who can see what) in your knowledge base. The following sectionsdescribe how you define privileges and visibilities in BMC Remedy KnowledgeManagement. While reading these sections, think about how content is created andviewed in your environment, and how you want to segment the knowledge inyour system.

Access control groups

Access control groups define privileges that determine what actions a user canperform. Each user is assigned to an access control group on the security tab of theSystem Settings screen. The access control group also contains the visibility groupassignment.

Access control group privileges are grouped into categories. You can enable ordisable individual privileges in each of the following categories:

View (solutions, reports, email solutions)

Authoring (create, edit draft, edit published, add words to dictionary, submitupdate request, delete)

Workflow (promote or demote, promote to or demote to, take ownership, assignownership, publish, retire)

News flashes (create, delete)

Settings (personal, system)

A user must be assigned to at least one access control group and visibility group tolog in to BMC Remedy Knowledge Management. A user can be assigned to morethan one access control group, which provides greater flexibility in setting up

security. All users have access to their own personal settings with the User Settingsprivilege, and administrators have access to the system settings with the SystemSettings privilege.


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BMC Remedy Knowledge Management supplies five default access controlgroups The following chart identifies the default privileges for each access controlgroup. Your system administrator can modify these defaults for yourenvironment.

Privilege KMSSysAdmin KMSAdmin KMSSME KMSUser KMSSelfHelp

Viewsolutions

X X X X X

View reports X X

Emailsolutions

X X X X

Create orsubmitsolutions

X X X X

Edit draft X X X

Editpublished

X X X

Add word tospell checker

X

Submitupdaterequest

X X X X

Delete X X

Promote ordemote

X X X

Promote to ordemote to

X X

Takeownership

X X

Assignownership

X X X

Publish X X

Retire X XCreate or editnews flashes

X X X

Delete newsflashes

X X

Personalsettings

X X X X

Systemsettings

X


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Visibility groups

Visibility groups restrict or grant user access to solutions. For example, if a user isassigned to the visibility group Support, that user can view solutions that have been assigned to the Support visibility group during the authoring process.

Visibility groups can be further classified as self-help. A solution that is assignedto at least one self-help visibility group is considered to be a self-help solution. Thisinformation is used solely to control how the document is rendered.

By default, all access control groups, except KMSSelfHelp, have access to allvisibility groups. The KMSSelfHelp access control group has access to only theSelf-Help visibility group.

Assigning solutions to visibility groups

You assign solutions to visibility groups in the document editor. New solutions are

assigned to the author's visibility groups by default. The solution author canremove and add visibility groups, but only from their list of assigned groups.When a solution is assigned to another user, that user can add and removevisibility groups from his or her own assigned groups, but cannot manipulate anyother visibility groups already assigned to the solution.

Attachments are assigned the same visibility group as the solution they areattached to. Global attachments do not have any visibility groups that make themvisible to all users.

General solutions, such as other third-party documents, can be assigned to onevisibility group. You assign general documents a visibility group by creating a

sub-folder under the general documents folder with the name of the visibilitygroup. Any documents placed in that folder are assigned to that visibility group.

Assigning solutions to other authors

You can assign solutions to other authors by using the Assign to selection list in thedocument editor. When you assign a solution to another user, BMC RemedyKnowledge Management removes it from your work area and the assignee becomes the new owner. The Assign to selection list contains all system users whohave draft editing privileges and who are in the same visibility groups as the userviewing the solution. Typically, only system administrators have access to the

Assign to list and all visibility groups. In a more complex setup, you can defineusers to have authority or assign privileges for a select visibility group.

For example, the users listed have draft editing privileges and the ability to assignsolutions. They also have the following visibility groups:

Sally - VG1, VG2

Bob - VG1

Jane - VG2


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In this example:

When Sally views the Assign to list, she can see Sally, Bob, and Jane.

When Bob views the Assign to list, he can see Sally and Bob.

When Jane views the Assign to list, she can see Sally and Jane.

Partitioning

Partitioning, or configuring access control groups and visibility groups together,enables you to create flexible authoring and viewing environments. You can allowsome users administrative privileges for solutions in one visibility group and userprivileges for solutions in another visibility group. Before you define your accesscontrol and visibility groups, you should evaluate your user base and contentneeds.

BMC Remedy Knowledge Management has three types of partitioning:

Default

Basic

Advanced

Default

In default partitioning, you use the five access control groups and two visibilitygroups supplied by BMC Remedy Knowledge Management to assign privilegesand views to users. You define users in the System Settings screen and assign each

user to one of the five default access control groups.For example, you might want to assign all support engineers to the KMSAC-KMSSME access control group. Users assigned to this group have view and authorprivileges for all visibility groups in your system.

Basic partitioning

In basic partitioning, you create your own access control groups withcorresponding visibility groups. You also remove the visibility group selectionfrom the five default access control groups, by deselecting the All visibility groupsoption. This creates an environment where users have privileges for solutions onlyin their visibility group.

For example, you perform the following tasks:

1 Create a new access control group, Benefits-Medical, and a correspondingvisibility group, Benefits-Medical.

The access control group has the View privilege and is assigned to the Benefits-Medical visibility group.

2 Change the five default access control groups so that the visibility group isassigned to the new Benefits-Medical visibility group.


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For user Mary Smith, you can do either of the following tasks:

Assign user Mary Smith to access control group Benefits-Medical, which givesher the ability to view all solutions that have been assigned to the Benefits-Medical visibility group.

Assign user Mary Smith to access control group KMSAC-KMSAdmin, whichgives her full administrator privileges for solutions that have been assigned tothe Benefits-Medical visibility group.

Advanced partitioning

More complex security models can be implemented by creative mixing ofprivileges and visibility groups. Since each user can be assigned to more than oneaccess control group, you can create an environment where a user is theadministrator for one set of solutions and a user of another set of solutions.

For example, you perform the following tasks:

1 Create a new access control group, Benefits-Dental, and a corresponding visibilitygroup, Benefits-Dental.

The access control group has the View, Author, Workflow, and News flashesprivileges and is assigned to the Benefits-Dental visibility group.

2 Create a new access control group, Benefits-All.

The Benefits-All access control group has View and Author privileges andBenefits-Medical, Benefits-Dental, Benefits-Life, and Benefits-PTO visibilitygroups.

When you assign a user to both access control groups, Benefits-Dental andBenefits-All, that user has the following access:

View, author, workflow, and news flash access for solutions assigned to theBenefits-Dental visibility group

Author and view access for solutions assigned to benefits visibility groups(Benefits-Medical, Benefits-Dental, Benefits-Life, Benefits-PTO)

For information about how to add users and define access control groups andvisibility groups, see Chapter 6, “Managing your system with the System Settingstool.”

NOTE When you assign a user to more than one access control group, BMC RemedyKnowledge Management grants the user the combined privileges of both groups.Neither group overrides another.

Configuration examples

The following examples describe how to configure a system with multiple accesscontrol groups and visibility groups.


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Option 1: Combining privileges and visibility groups

Combining access control groups and visibility groups enables you to providemultiple levels of access for users by assigning them to only one access controlgroup.

In your system, you have three visibility groups (VG1, VG2, and VG3) and threeprivilege types (View, View and Author, View and News Flashes). To configure adifferent privilege set for each of the three visibility groups, define the followingaccess control groups:

ACG1: View with VG1

ACG2: View with VG2

ACG3: View with VG3

ACG4: View and Author with VG1



ACG7: View and News Flashes with VG1



When a user from the access control group ACG4 logs in to BMC RemedyKnowledge Management, that user can view and author all solutions assigned tothe VG1 visibility group.

Option 2: Separating privileges and visibility groups

Separating access control groups and visibility groups enables you to providemultiple levels of access for users by assigning them multiple access controlgroups. This is useful if you want to minimize the number of access control groupsin your system. This process can be used only if your access control groups are notdependent on visibility groups.

In your system, you have three visibility groups (VG1, VG2, and VG3) and threeprivilege types (View, View and Author, View and News Flashes). To configure adifferent privilege set for each of the privilege types and each visibility group,define the following access control groups:

ACG1: View privileges

ACG2: View and author privileges

ACG3: View with News Flashes privileges

ACG4: VG1

ACG5: VG2

ACG6: VG3

To grant a user view and author privileges to solutions assigned to visibility groupVG1, assign that user to both ACG2 and ACG4.


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Categorization

BMC Remedy Knowledge Management provides a default categorizationstructure that allows you to categorize your knowledge solutions. Any number ofcategories can be defined.

All visibility groups use the same list of categories. This behavior can beoverridden by assigning a specific list of categories to a visibility group. Categoryselection is offered in the following areas of the user interface:

The Quick Search box on the Home page

The document editor

The browse page

The search page

The Add Watch Item on the Watch List tab of the Personal Settings screen

If the user's set of visibility groups share the same category list (which is alwaystrue by default and for most configurations), then that category list is usedthroughout the user interface. If the user has access to multiple category lists, thena top-level select box appears that allows the user to choose which list to use.

The document editor is a special case in that the available category lists are furtherconstrained by the visibility groups assigned to the solution. The document editorcan also include specific category sections, independent of visibility groups.

Your solution categories can be derived from ITSM or you can define your owncategories in an XML file. Typically, if you are integrated with ITSM you deriveyour categories from ITSM. You define your category structure in the categories

section of the configuration file. For more information, see Chapter 5,“Configuring options in the configuration file.”

Document templates

The list of authoring templates is defined in the application configuration file, theDocument Templates section. Each template can be assigned a list of visibilitygroups to restrict who can create new solutions of that type. This restriction doesnot apply to editing solutions after they have been created. For more information,see Chapter 5, “Configuring options in the configuration file.”

Template fields

Document templates are XML files that specify fields. Each field can haveassociated visibility groups to restrict who can view that field, and who can edit it.You can assign a field to a visibility group by editing the authoring template andadding the visibility group to the field name. For more information, see“Customizing templates” on page 44.


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Solution workflow

Solution workflow

The solution life cycle begins with a draft solution. When you create a solution andpromote it into the workflow, the solution enters the approval process. A solution

is considered to be in the approval process at any point prior to it being published.During the approval process, your administrator decides whether to approve ordelete the solution. If approved, your solution is published.

You or your administrator can delete the solution to remove it from the knowledge base at any time during the approval process. However, when your administratorpublishes the solution to the knowledge base, no one can delete it. You retiresolutions after they are published. Retiring a solution prevents it from beingsearched during a regular query.

BMC Remedy Knowledge Management has a built-in workflow that moves asolution through a defined series of steps, in which the final outcome is a

published solution. When you create a solution, BMC Remedy KnowledgeManagement initially assigns it to draft status. You can promote your solution intothe workflow for approval, or assign your solution to another user for review.When approved, your knowledge administrator publishes your solution.

The following default workflow is provided:

Draft

SME Review

Spelling

Final Review

When planning your implementation, consider what review levels are practical inyour environment. Perhaps the SME Review and Spelling checks are done at thesame time and, therefore, can be combined into one single workflow step. Orperhaps your solutions need to have an additional compliance review before theyare published.

In BMC Remedy Knowledge Management, you can use either of the followingmethods to define your workflow:

Configuration file workflow: You can easily add or remove workflow steps byediting the Workflow section of the configuration file. For more information, see

Chapter 5, “Configuring options in the configuration file.” AR System workflow: You can configure BMC Remedy Knowledge

Management to use AR System workflow by creating a filter in AR System. Formore information, see “Using AR System workflow” on page 125.


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Searching for solutions

BMC Remedy Knowledge Management uses Hummingbird SearchServer to locatesolutions in the knowledge base. Hummingbird SearchServer builds a

comprehensive index that allows you to search any text contained in yourknowledge base solutions. By default, a basic search uses a logical “and”comparison on the search query terms. The same default search format includes anatural-language extension with stemming, thesaurus, keyword, and stop wordfunctionality. Advanced Search parameters allow you to use Boolean operators“and” and “not,” phrase searching, and category searches.

Search features

Hummingbird SearchServer for BMC Remedy Knowledge Management includes

the following search features: Intuitive searching: A natural-language type query where Hummingbird

SearchServer generates a set of search terms based on search words you supply.Hummingbird SearchServer generates the search terms according to wordfrequency and various weighting factors.

Search term variants (stemming): Stemming includes variants of search wordsin the search when appropriate. For example, a search for “printing error” yieldsresults that include print, printer, and printed.

Stop words: A stop list omits common terms found in solutions from the indexand excludes them from the search. Stop words tend to slow the search without

increasing the relevancy of solutions in the search results list. Stop wordsinclude such terms as the, where, is, and how.

Thesaurus: The thesaurus contains user-defined synonyms, includingacronyms and abbreviations. It can be easily customized.

Weighted terms and keywords: Keywords allow select terms in a solution to beweighted higher than other words. When BMC Remedy KnowledgeManagement searches for solutions, it examines the following solution fields:

Title

Solution text

Keywords

By default, the Title and Keywords fields are weighted three times higher than theSolution Text field. Therefore, if your search terms are found in the Title orKeywords fields, BMC Remedy Knowledge Management gives that solution ahigher relevancy ranking (compared to solutions that might have the search termsin only the solution text). You define keywords in the Keywords field in thesolution template. While all words in a solution are indexed, those words listed inthe Keywords field can increase the solution ranking. You can change the defaultsearch fields and their weight in the Queries section of the configuration file. Formore information, see Chapter 5, “Configuring options in the configuration file.”


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Searching for solutions

Ranking algorithms

Hummingbird SearchServer uses a Critical Terms Ordered algorithm (F2:4) torank the search results. This ranking algorithm computes the solution relevancystatistically and takes into account the number of occurrences of each search term

and how common the term is in the solution. You can change the default rankalgorithm and the search mode by changing the Relevance and Mode parametersin the Queries section of the configuration file.

You can choose from the following ranking algorithms:

Hits count algorithm (F2:1): This ranking algorithm calculates relevancy bycounting the total number of occurrences of the individual words matched,regardless of the term frequency.

Terms count algorithm (F2:2): This ranking algorithm calculates relevancy bycounting the number of different search terms matched. The relevance value isthe number of terms matched.

Terms ordered algorithm (F2:3): This ranking algorithm calculates relevancy byusing a mathematical formula that computes the relevance statistically. Itcombines the characteristics of the Hit Counts and Terms Counts algorithmsand the number of matched search terms. It considers the statisticalmeasurement of how common the term is in the solution.

Critical terms ordered algorithm (F2:4): This ranking algorithm calculatesrelevancy by placing more emphasis on search terms that occur less often in thesolution. These are the terms that are most useful in distinguishing betweenrelevant and non-relevant solutions.


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Customizing templates

BMC Remedy Knowledge Management processes solutions and emailnotifications with a series of XML template files. These templates can be easily

customized to suit your needs. Templates are in standard XML format and anymodifications you make must conform to XML standards.

TIP

To determine if your changes conform to standard XML, open the document in a browser. If it is valid, the complete document appears correctly; otherwise errorsappear.

Templates are stored in the \ kms_ data\ t empl at es\ folder. The following tabledescribes the default templates in BMC Remedy Knowledge Management.

Email templatesEmail templates are used to format the email message that is sent when:

A solution is sent in an email to another user.

A notification email is sent to a user when a watched solution is updated.

A notification email is sent to a user when a solution is assigned to them.

The following sample shows the XML template used by BMC Remedy KnowledgeManagement to send an email message indicating a solution has been assigned toanother user.

Template name Description Type

Ass i gned_not i f i cat i on. xml Email template used when asolution is assigned.

Email

DecTr ee_Templ at e. xml Decision tree solutiontemplate.

Document

Emai l . xml Email template used when asolution is sent as an emailmessage.

Email

Er r or Message_Templ at e. xml “Error message” s

BMC Remedy Knowledge Management 7.2 - Planning and Configuration Guide

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Transcript of BMC Remedy Knowledge Management 7.2 - Planning and Configuration Guide