KB Article Versions and how to force open latest published version

[antryan]

In our Service Offerings we have fields that contain links to KB articles.

Since upgrading to Kingston from Istanbul and turning on versioning in knowledge, we now have an issue where if a new version of an article is created, the fields will still show previous the version/s. 

Sure, when someone opens the article it prompts sayings a new version is available, however this is not an ideal UX.

Any ideas on how to either force when opened to go to the latest version, or somehow programmaticly dynamically update the field to only show the latest version?

[Padmaprabodh Am]

Hello, the current behavior is expected by design because we do have requirements from other customers to preserve the link to the original article version (this is in fact a KCS - Knowledge Centered Support - requirement). You can have this feature formally requested from ServiceNow by filing an INT and requesting an enhancement request. If you do want to pursue this from ServiceNow as a standard offering, please add a reference to this thread in the INT that you file.

If you are looking at a short-term solution, then I can suggest two approaches:

1. Customize the article view page to issue a redirect to the latest version, if available. You can check this by querying for kb_knowledge table with the article number, and check the version field of the records returned to find out the latest version.

2. Solve this at the source, i.e. when you create/publish a new version of an article, have a custom business rule to find out if this article is linked to in your custom application (like the Detailed Design, Technical Recovery Procedure fields that you refer to above). If yes, then go ahead and update the references to the newly created article version record.

I hope the above helps.

Regards,

Padmaprabodh

Director, Applications Development, ServiceNow.

[antryan]

Thanks for the response.  They both sound like fantastic ideas, however I have no idea how to implement either. 

Is anyone able to provide some assistance?

Thanks

[Mathias Johans1]

"1. Customize the article view page to issue a redirect to the latest version, if available. You can check this by querying for kb_knowledge table with the article number, and check the version field of the records returned to find out the latest version."

I tried this in the KB Article Page widget using gs.setRedirectURL(), but it only triggers if the page has been loaded previously, i.e you open the kb article page and then reloads...

Is there a better way to redirect to the latest article sys_id?

(Clarification, my requirement only concerns Service Portal)

[rahuljairath]

I too agree with antryan considering a fact that we have these links shared on our internal Portals.

Changing knowledge version means having new links every time you update KA.

My question would be on how to have unique URL to one KA & making sure it navigates to the LIVE version of the KA.