Managing access to knowledge bases and knowledge articles

Determine whether certain users or categories of users can access knowledge bases and knowledge articles by controlling contribute and read access.

As a knowledge administrator, manager of a knowledge base, or owner of a knowledge base, you can assign user criteria to control contribute and read access at the knowledge base level, where:

• Read access determines the ability to view knowledge articles in a knowledge base.
• Contribute access determines the ability to create, modify, and retire knowledge articles in a knowledge base.

As a knowledge administrator, manager of a knowledge base, or owner of a knowledge base, you can assign user criteria, or roles, or both, to control read access at the knowledge article level.

Try to use only user criteria, which were introduced in Knowledge Management v3, to control access to knowledge articles. Roles were used for this purpose in Knowledge Management v2. If no user criteria is selected for a knowledge base, all users can read and all users with roles can contribute to that knowledge base.

Note: By default, when contribute access isn't provided for a knowledge base, a user must meet both roles and user criteria conditions for read access. However, you can override roles set for a knowledge article and provide access through user criteria only by setting the glide.knowman.search.apply_role_based_security system property to false. Because this property isn't available by default, you must add it. For more information, see Add a system property.

User criteria for knowledge access

As a knowledge administrator, manager of a knowledge base, or owner of a knowledge base, you control access to knowledge bases or knowledge articles for a user through user criteria, which are described in the following table.

The access to knowledge base and its articles are defined based on the user criteria status for a user as described in the following table.

Users with special knowledge privileges

Users with special knowledge privileges aren't evaluated based on user criteria and have knowledge bases and knowledge articles access as described in the following table.

Explicit roles and user criteria

Explicit roles (snc_external and snc_internal) are added to your instance when your administrator installs a plugin, such as the Customer Service plugin (com.sn_customerservice), that also activates the Explicit Roles plugin (com.glide.explicit_roles). If you create a knowledge base with the Explicit Roles plugin (com.glide.explicit_roles) activated, the application automatically adds the following predefined user criteria at the knowledge base level:

• Users with 'snc_internal' role – Added to the Can Read user criteria enabling only users with the snc_internal role have read access to the knowledge base.
• Users with snc_internal' and another role – Added to the Can Contribute user criteria enabling only users with the snc_internal role and at least one additional role have contribute access to the knowledge base.

When you upgrade to product versions (from Rome onwards) that offer the Explicit Roles plugin (com.glide.explicit_roles), the predefined user criteria Users with 'snc_internal' role and Users with 'snc_internal' and another role aren't automatically added to any existing knowledge bases created prior to the activation of the Explicit Roles plugin. To add these predefined user criteria to an existing knowledge base, run the Fix unsecured knowledge bases fix script. For more information about explicit roles and fix scripts, see Explicit Roles and Fix scripts.

Determining contribute access to a knowledge base and its articles using user criteria

When either Cannot Contribute isn’t set or a user doesn’t match Cannot Contribute and additionally Can Contribute is not set, the glide.knowman.block_access_with_no_user_criteria property value is further evaluated to determine contribute access, as explained in the following table.

When a user has contribute access to a knowledge base, the glide.knowman.apply_article_read_criteria property is evaluated to determine contribute access to an article in the knowledge base, as explained in the following table.

Determining read access to articles in a knowledge base using user criteria

When either Cannot Read isn’t set or a user doesn’t match Cannot Read and additionally Can Read is not set, the glide.knowman.block_access_with_no_user_criteria property value is further evaluated to determine read access, as explained in the following table.

When a user has contribute access to a knowledge base, the glide.knowman.apply_article_read_criteria property is evaluated to determine read access to an article in the knowledge base, as explained in the following table.

Important: After you add user criteria, you can use the user criteria diagnostics feature to verify the access that users have to a knowledge base or a knowledge article. For more information, see User criteria diagnostics for Knowledge Management.

• Create user criteria for controlling access to knowledge bases and articles
  Control access to knowledge bases and articles by creating user criteria.
• Control access at the knowledge base level through user criteria
  You specify user criteria for a knowledge base to control which users are granted access to read and contribute knowledge articles to that knowledge base.
• Control access at the knowledge article level through user criteria
  You specify user criteria for a knowledge article to control which users are granted read access to the knowledge article.

Parent Topic:Configuring Knowledge Management

Related topics

Knowledge Management properties

Configuration tasks for knowledge managers

Knowledge Management FAQ

Create user criteria for controlling access to knowledge bases and articles