The Knowledge base, FAQ, and Work database

All questions recorded in RefTracker are recorded in a database. Staff can Search for all questions in this entire database (if their system administrator has allowed them access to this function and all questions in all locations).

Questions that are open (not yet complete) are considered as being in the Work database – which is just a subset of the whole database.

As questions are closed (completed) they remain in the database, but they can also be marked as being in the Knowledge base (KB), in KB review status (recommended for KB inclusion but not yet included), and even in a subset of the Knowledge base called FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions).

The Knowledge base and FAQ concepts do not have to be used in RefTracker. Questions are marked as being in the Knowledge base to indicate that they are quality answers. These quality answers can be made available for just staff, or for both staff and clients.  Making the KB available for staff indicates that the question is a quality answer suitable for reuse by staff without rechecking its validity.  Making the KB or FAQ available for clients (Public) means that it will be included in the client interface for browsing and searching.

KB questions can also be designated as being in the FAQ, if this concept is in use by your organisation. The FAQ subset is designed to indicate that this is a commonly used KB entry.  It can also be separately made available for staff to use, or for both staff and clients to use (via the client interface or through your web pages). System Administrators should see parameters 0.15-17 and Customising your client interface for more details about who the KB and FAQ concepts should be made available to.  If you choose not to make these concepts available to anyone, the KB and FAQ inclusion information in the Details tab is no longer shown.

When a question is first marked for inclusion in the Knowledge base it is placed in “KB review” status and must be reviewed by an eligible staff member to ensure its quality, and that any private information in the question or answer have been removed. Only after a question has been reviewed will it be added to the KB.

If a record is included in the KB, then that record will have “Included” saved in the “KB status” field, and the date and time it was added to the KB placed in the “Date added to KB” field. It will also have a date in the “KB review field” if a review date of anything other than “never” has been selected for it. This KB status information can be seen in the Status section of the Summary screen Details tab.

If a KB record is included in the FAQ, then that record will have “Included” saved in the “FAQ status” field, and the date and time it was added to the FAQ placed in the “Date added to FAQ” field. The FAQ status of a question can be seen in the Status section of the Summary screen Details tab.

Records can be pre-emptively inserted in the Knowledge base using the KBnew form under New. This function is usually used to add records to the KB when your system is new. Many customers will restrict access to this function for all but the staff who manage the Knowledge base.

If you use the FAQ concept, whenever you are asked about whether a question should be added to the KB, you will also be asked if it should be added to the FAQ.

You can review the items in your Knowledge base by selecting “Knowledge base” in the Database parameter of the Search screen.  Similarly you can search for items in the FAQ by selecting it in the Database parameter of the Search screen.  Then use the other Search parameters to enter appropriate search terms if you want to find a specific FAQ.

To find questions in KB review status (those questions waiting to be checked before inclusion in the KB) select “KB review” in the Status field of the Search screen.

Systems administrators can check for KB entries that have reached their KB review date, using the Data extract report – extract all questions to Excel with the Text field ticked, and sort on the KB review date column.

Client requests that you handle in the course of running your service can also be added to the Knowledge base/FAQ. You can choose how you want to implement this function:

1. You can limit the process of adding questions to the KB, to Supervisors and above who have access to the “KB review” function under Actions. If you choose this approach, staff who have access to the KB review screen will need to review all recently closed work on a regular basis, and use the KB review screen to edit questions and answers that they want to go into the KB, and set their KB review period.
2. You can allow ALL staff to contribute to the KB by adding the “Include in KB” option into the closing section of any Request forms that could result in questions and answers that should be contributed to the KB. Your System administrator does this by using the “Include in KB prompt” option in the Edit options screen of the appropriate form/s.
3. You can allow some staff to contribute to the KB and others to only “recommend” that questions be added to the KB. To do this, set up as for point 2, but then, for each staff member who should only be allowed to “recommend”, ensure that in the Functions tab of their signon, they have been denied access to “Add questions to the KB”. When a staff member who can only recommend a question for KB inclusion, does so using the “Recommend for KB inclusion” prompt when closing questions for which the form allows for KB inclusion, the question is placed into “KB review” status. Supervisors and above can then search for questions in KB review status and use the KB review function under to Actions to either include or exclude the recommended questions, and make any changes required before that is done. 

IT approval needed to publish KB/FAQ entries?

Many organisations have rules about what can be published on their web sites, meaning that for RefTracker KB questions and answers to be allowed to appear in the web site they first need to be approved. In your organisation, you may prefer to use the KB function to indicate questions that you want to recommend to your IT department for publication in your web site, and the FAQ concept for questions that have been approved.

To extract the items marked as being in the FAQ, so your IT department can include them in their web pages, go to Systems>Batch process menu>Data import/export>Data export and use the “FAQ records” export function, or they can simply insert the RefTracker client interface FAQ page in their web pages (see Customising your client interface for details of how to do this.

Reusing information in KB entries

The text of KB entries can be easily reused by cutting and pasting that text.

Attachments can be reused by right clicking the attachment name and using the “Copy link” option.  This will allow the permanent URL for this attachment to be reused anywhere that you want to reuse that attachment such as in the body of a RefTracker response, or in an email.  A permanent URL can be identified by the “guid” parameter it contains.  For security reasons, when a permanent attachment URL is clicked the attachment displays using a temporary URL.  Do not copy this temporary URL as it truly is temporary.  You can identify a temporary attachment URL by the “attachment/view” directory in its URL.

The Email this answer to anyone function (under Actions) can also be used to send KB information to other users.