Agents can be required to receive approval before their
Solutions are published. This
is configured by the Workspace Administrator. Refer
to Knowledge Base Role Permissions for Agents
for instructions.
Once approvals are configured for at least one user role,
the approval process is in place automatically. The
workflow of the Knowledge Base approval process is fixed and includes
automatic email notification, new options for Solutions for the approvers,
and two new special Statuses: Pending
Internal Solution and Pending
Public Solution.
Approval Workflow
When an Agent who
requires approval creates a new Solution, the Solution automatically receives
the Pending
Internal Solution or Pending
Public Solution status (depending on the Solution type).
All Knowledge Base
approvers for the Workspace receive an email notifying them that there is
a new Public or Internal Solution requiring approval.
Approvers can view
the pending Solution by selecting Pending
Internal Solutions or Pending
Public Solutions from the Display
drop-down list on their homepage. These
queues are listed under the Knowledge
Base heading in the Display
drop-down.
The approver can
view the Details of the Solution by selecting the Solution number or Title
from the list.
The Details of the
pending Solution include the Title, the Description, the name of the Submitter,
and any other field data.
The approver also
gets three approval buttons for the pending Solution:
Approve—This
changes the status to Public
Solution or Internal
Solution (depending on the type). For
Public Solutions, the Solution is displayed to all users who have access
to that Knowledge Base. The
Solution is no longer listed in the pending Solutions queue.
Edit and Approve—If
selected, the Edit
Solution page is displayed. The approver can make any changes desired
to the Solution. Once
the approver clicks Save,
the Solution changes status and is published to the correct Knowledge
Base (as described above).
Disapprove—If
selected, the Disapprove
Pending Solution page is displayed. The approver can give a reason
for the rejection. The
Submitter receives an email notification of the rejection, with the reason
for the rejection. This
reason is also written to the History of the Solution, but not to the
Description.
When a Solution is
rejected, the Submitter receives an email with the reason given for the
rejection. The
Agent can view the Solution by selecting Pending
Internal Solutions or Pending
Public Solutions from the Display
drop-down list on his homepage. These
queues are listed under the Knowledge
Base heading in the Display
drop-down. The
Agent only sees pending Solutions that the Agent personally submitted.
The Submitter now
edits the Solution, based on the comments made by the approver. Once
the update is submitted, the approver receives an email notification and
the workflow continues until the approver selects Approve
for the pending Solution.
Once a Solution is approved, the status is changed to
Public
Solution or Internal
Solution (depending on the type). For
Public Solutions, the Solution is displayed to all users who have access
to the Knowledge Base (all Agents and any customers who have access to
the Public Knowledge Base). For
Internal Solutions, the Solution is available to all Agents. The
Solution is no longer listed in the Pending
Solutions queue.