Business case
Customers are looking for one central place to store and offer static information. This has to be easily accessible for everyone within the organization, and preferably categorized by subject.
Announcements does not properly suit this purpose, as it is focused on dynamic content: information that is relevant today, but becomes less relevant in a short period of time. This also means that announcements are generally posted more frequently, which would make pieces of static information less visible and thus harder to find. A different solution was needed, to allow customers to present different types of information in a single, clear and easy-to-use place.
Thus, we created Knowledge articles, as part of The Hub. Similar to Announcements, it offers an easy, user-friendly way to offer information to end users, but focused on static information rather than dynamic.
About knowledge articles
Knowledge articles are part of the Hub. In the Knowledge articles you’ll find company (or team) wide documents that provide important information regarding the company. You can think of an employee guide, a how-to for the coffee machine or what the policy is regarding calling in sick. We bring everything together in one central place, which you can customize according to your company’s needs, saving employees time looking for the right document.
Each knowledge article will also display a view count, showing how many unique users have viewed the knowledge article.
Create knowledge articles
You’ll notice that the process of creating a new knowledge article is very user-friendly with an intuitive design that simplifies the creation process.
Knowledge articles can be created from the Hub:
There's various ways to create a knowledge article:
Click on the "Create" button at the top of your workspace, then select Knowledge article.
Click the plus icon from a Hub live tile set to Knowledge base.
From The Hub page
From the Overview page, select "New", then select Knowledge article
From the All categories page, "New"
From a knowledge base category page, select "New" to create a new announcement that is automatically assigned to that category
When filling in the content for your knowledge article, a title is required. Click on the plus icon to add elements such as subtitles, paragraphs, images, video and lines. You can also define the grid, such as the number of columns, big left-/right column, etc.
Templates
When you create a new knowledge article, you will be prompted to select a template. By default, only the "Blank knowledge article" template is available. You can click "New template" to create a new template, or convert existing knowledge articles to a template. Selecting a template will show a preview on the right side of the window.
Templates can be managed from the Manage Hub items screen (The Hub > Manage). From here, you can create new templates, or edit, duplicate, rename or delete existing templates. Users can be granted permissions to manage templates.
Save as draft
If you inadvertently close the knowledge article, it will automatically be saved as a draft. Or if you find yourself unable to complete your knowledge article or wish to have it reviewed before publishing, ensure you save it as a draft. Both the category and title are mandatory for knowledge articles to be successfully saved as drafts.
Images & videos
Default placeholder
When creating a knowledge article, you can add an image or video. These can be added as the cover media, or as part of the item’s content. When no image or video is added as a cover media, a default placeholder will be shown. This placeholder cannot be changed.
If you add a video as a cover media, the following cover media image will be shown by default. This image cannot be changed.
Images
Only PNG and JPG files are supported. There is no preference for either format.
The optimal resolution is 800 x 450 px.
There is no size limit, but larger files may take longer to render. We recommend a maximum file size of 5MB.
Videos
You can use a Youtube or Vimeo video URL to add a video using the "Video" element.
There is no maximum resolution or file size for videos.
Edit knowledge article
You can edit a knowledge article after publishing it, for example, to update it with the latest information related to the item. There are two ways to do this. For both ways, you must be at least an 'Editor' of the knowledge article:
Select the knowledge article in the Hub and click the pencil icon in the top right (recommended).
In the Hub, click Manage to open the Manage Hub items window. Select the knowledge article and click Edit.
Delete knowledge articles
Knowledge articles can only be deleted from the Manage Hub items window, accessible via the Manage button in the Hub. Select the item you want to delete and click 'Delete' in the top left.
Deleting a knowledge articles permanently removes it from the workspace. Deleted items cannot be recovered
Archive knowledge articles
Knowledge articles can only be archived from the Manage Hub items window, accessible via the Manage button in the Hub. Select the item you want to delete and click 'Archive' in the top left corner.
Archived items cannot be republished or edited. They can only be viewed by Workspace admins and category owners/editors from the Hub settings page.
Status
From the Manage Hub items window, accessible via the Manage button in the Hub, you can filter items by their status. Knowledge articles have one of three statuses:
Published: The knowledge article is published and can be viewed from the Hub by the users who have access to it. You can edit its content, delete the item or archive it.
Draft: the knowledge article is a work in progress. You can edit, publish, delete or archive the item.
Archived: the knowledge article is archived. You can ‘edit’ it to view its content and settings in read-only mode, or you can delete the item.
Categories
Categories are used to quickly group and view all knowledge articles assigned to a category. New categories can be created based on your organization’s needs, for example “HR”, “Internal IT” or “Marketing” categories.
Permissions
Permissions allow you to specify who can create knowledge articles in a category, or whom can create a new category. This grants Communication Managers and/or functional admins control who can provide information to the company via the Hub.
For a more detailed explanation about permissions, please read the article: About the Hub.
Best practices
It’s recommended to assign permissions based on groups rather than individual users. For more info, see our article about Understand and manage user permissions in Workspace 365.
Create categories based on your organization’s needs, and assign permissions for each category to the appropriate employees.
For example, grant HR employees permissions to create and maintain knowledge articles in the “HR” category.
The Hub live tile offers different layouts, default views and you can choose to add the live tile more than once to Workspace. We mention some general best practices for the the Hub live tile in the article: About the Hub.
Users can search for Knowledge articles using the Global Search.
Pin the most important knowledge articles, so they appear at the top of the category page. The two most recent pinned items will be shown in the live tile.
Keep the information short but sweet, so that users don’t get overwhelmed by a long text.
Want to add extensive information? Refer to a SharePoint document, for example. This way, you also prevent having to keep track of the same information in multiple places.
Add tags to your knowledge articles. Tags help to identify what knowledge articles are about, so users can find the right information faster.
For example, the knowledge articles “How can I view my payslip?” could have the tags “Payslip” and “HR”.
Activity Feed notifications about knowledge articles are great to inform users, but remember that too many notifications may cause clutter.
For example, if you find yourself unable to complete your knowledge article or wish to have it reviewed before publishing, ensure you save it as a draft.