Managing email notifications in Knowledge Management

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 6 minutes to read
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    Summary of Managing email notifications in Knowledge Management

    This guidance explains how ServiceNow’s Knowledge Management application handles various email notifications to keep relevant users informed about knowledge articles and related tasks. Notifications cover feedback tasks, subscriptions, publishing workflows, translation assignments, article expirations, and article quality index (AQI) reviews. Administrators control notification availability by activating specific plugins, and users can customize their notification preferences.

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    Types of Email Notifications and Their Recipients

    • Knowledge Article Feedback Tasks: Sent when feedback tasks are created, commented on, reassigned, or resolved. Recipients are typically the users assigned to or submitting the feedback task.
    • Knowledge Subscriptions: Notify subscribers about article checkouts, comments, publications, and revisions. Recipients include authors, ownership group members/managers, revisers, knowledge base owners, and subscribers depending on the context.
    • Article Approval Publishing Workflow: Alerts users involved in the approval process when articles are approved or rejected for publishing. Recipients vary based on ownership group settings and include authors, revisers, ownership group managers, and knowledge base owners.
    • Translation Tasks: Inform assigned users when translation tasks are assigned or completed. Recipients include the translator and the submitter of the translation task.
    • Expiring Knowledge Articles: Monthly reminders are sent to authors, knowledge base owners/managers, revisers, and ownership group members if enabled. Notifications help manage article validity by prompting reviews before expiration.
    • Article Quality Index (AQI) Reviews: Notify authors, revisers, and ownership groups when AQI reviews are submitted, helping maintain article quality.

    Key Configuration Details for ServiceNow Customers

    • Most notifications require activation of the Knowledge Management Core plugin (com.glideapp.knowledge).
    • Advanced notifications, such as ownership group notifications, translation tasks, and AQI reviews, require the Knowledge Management Advanced plugin (com.snc.knowledgeadvanced).
    • Translation notifications also require internationalization plugins.
    • Expiration notifications depend on enabling the property glide.knowman.enablearticleexpirynotification.
    • Ownership groups and article versioning influence the recipient lists and notification behavior.
    • Users can set their own preferences to control which notifications they receive.

    Practical Benefits

    By managing these notifications effectively, ServiceNow customers can ensure timely communication and task completion related to knowledge articles. This improves article quality, keeps content up-to-date, supports multilingual knowledge bases, and helps maintain compliance with content validity policies.

    Reminders enable relevant users to review knowledge articles and complete tasks associated with them.

    By default, the Knowledge Management application includes the following types of email notifications:

    You can decide if you must receive any knowledge notifications by setting notification preferences. For more information, see Set knowledge notification preferences.

    Email notifications for knowledge article feedback tasks

    The email notifications for knowledge article feedback tasks are available when your administrator activates the Knowledge Management Core plugin (com.glideapp.knowledge).

    The following table describes the recipient list of notifications for knowledge article feedback tasks and the associated conditions when a notification is sent.

    Table 1. Recipient list of the email notification for knowledge article feedback tasks
    Notification Condition Recipients
    KM Feedback Task: Commented A comment was added to a user feedback task. User who was assigned the feedback task
    KM Feedback Task: Created A user feedback task was created. User who was assigned the feedback task
    KM Feedback Task: Info from Submitter More information was requested from the submitter of a user feedback task. User who submitted the feedback task
    KM Feedback Task: Reassigned A user feedback task was reassigned. User who was reassigned the feedback task
    KM Feedback Task: Resolution Accepted A resolution described in a user feedback task was accepted. User who was assigned the feedback task
    KM Feedback Task: Resolution Rejected A resolution described in a user feedback task was rejected. User who was assigned the feedback task
    KM Feedback Task: Resolved A user feedback task was set as resolved. User who submitted the feedback task

    Email notifications for knowledge subscriptions

    The email notifications for knowledge subscriptions are available when your administrator activates the Knowledge Management Core plugin (com.glideapp.knowledge). For notifications associated with ownership groups, your administrator must also activate the Knowledge Management Advanced plugin (com.snc.knowledge_advanced).

    The following table describes the recipient list of notifications for knowledge subscriptions and the associated conditions when a notification is sent.

    Table 2. Recipient list of the email notification for knowledge subscriptions
    Notification Condition Recipients
    KM Subscription Group: Article checkout A subscribed knowledge article was checked out
    • Author (if no Ownership group is associated with the article)
    • Ownership group manager and members (if an Ownership group is associated with the article)
    • Revisers
    Note:
    The user who checked out the article does not receive the notification.
    KM Subscription Group: Article commented A comment was added to a subscribed knowledge article
    • Author (if no Ownership group is associated with the article)
    • Ownership group manager and members (if an Ownership group is associated with the article)
    • Revisers
    KM Subscription: Article published A knowledge article was created in a subscribed knowledge base
    • knowledge base owner
    • Knowledge base subscribers
    KM Subscription: Article revised A subscribed knowledge article was edited
    • Knowledge base owner
    • Knowledge article subscribers
    • Author
    • Revisers
    KM Subscription: Article revised in subscribed KB A knowledge article in a subscribed knowledge base was edited.
    • Knowledge base owner
    • Knowledge article subscribers
    • Author
    • Revisers
    • Knowledge base subscriber
    Note:
    An email notification is sent to a reviser of a knowledge article when the article versioning feature is enabled.

    Email notifications for knowledge article approval publishing workflow

    The email notifications for knowledge article approval publishing workflow are available when your administrator activates the Knowledge Management Core plugin (com.glideapp.knowledge).

    The following table describes the recipient list of notifications for the knowledge article approval publishing workflow and the associated conditions when a notification is sent.

    Table 3. Recipient list of the email notification for the knowledge article approval publishing workflow
    Notification Condition Recipients
    KM: Approve article for publishing A knowledge article was approved for publishing with the ownership group feature disabled. Knowledge base owner and managers
    A knowledge article was approved for publishing with the ownership group feature enabled. Ownership group manager and members
    Note:
    In Out-of-Box (OOB) configurations, the approval is sent only to the author.
    KM: Article approved for publish A knowledge article was approved for publication. User (author or reviser) who submitted the article for approval
    KM: Article rejected for publish A knowledge article was rejected for publication. User (author or reviser) who submitted the article for approval
    Note:
    An email notification is sent to a reviser of a knowledge article when the article versioning feature is enabled.

    Email notifications for translation tasks

    The email notifications for translation tasks are available when your administrator activates the Knowledge Management Advanced plugin (com.snc.knowledge_advanced) and I18N: Knowledge Management Internationalization Plugin v2 plugin (com.glideapp.knowledge.i18n2). The 18N: Internationalization plugin (com.glide.i18n) activates the I18N: Knowledge Management Internationalization Plugin v2 plugin.

    The following table describes the recipient list of notifications for translation tasks on knowledge articles and the associated conditions when a notification is sent.

    Table 4. Recipient list of the email notification for translation tasks
    Notification Condition Recipients
    KM Translation Task: Assigned to me A translation task was assigned. User who was assigned the translation task
    KM Translation Task: Closed A translation task was closed after the translated version of the knowledge article was published.
    • User who was assigned the translation task
    • User who submitted the translation task

    Email notifications for expiring knowledge articles

    The email notifications for expiring knowledge articles are available when your administrator activates the Knowledge Management Core plugin (com.glideapp.knowledge) and sets the value of the glide.knowman.enable_article_expiry_notification property to true. By default, the property value is set to false.

    Knowledge articles have an expiration date set using the Valid to field when creating the article. Articles do not appear in search results after the Valid to date.

    On the first day of each month, the application sends an email notification to a list of authorized recipients to remind them about articles that are scheduled to expire in the next month. The user can then determine whether to extend the Valid to date to continue providing access to the article.
    Note:
    To extend the Valid to date of a knowledge article, see Edit a knowledge article
    The content of the email notification is determined by the number of articles expiring in the coming month.
    • Up to 10 – The email notification includes a list of article links displayed in a tabular format and arranged in ascending order by their Valid to date. Clicking a link opens the article in ServiceNow AI Platform.
    • More than 10 – The email notification includes a View the list of expiring articles link, which when accessed opens a list in ServiceNow AI Platform of all articles expiring in the next month.

    The following table describes the recipient list of notifications for expiring knowledge articles and the associated conditions when a notification is sent.

    Table 5. Recipient list of the email notification for expiring knowledge articles
    Notification Condition Recipients
    KM: Article Expiry Warning An article is scheduled to expire in the next month with the ownership group feature disabled.
    • Author
    • Knowledge base owner and managers
    • Reviser for the updated and checked-out versions
    An article is scheduled to expire in the next month with the ownership group feature enabled.
    • Author
    • Knowledge base owner and managers
    • Reviser for the updated and checked-out versions
    • Ownership group manager and members
    Note:
    An email notification is sent to a reviser of a knowledge article when the article versioning feature is enabled.

    Email notifications for article quality index (AQI) reviews

    The email notifications for an article quality index review on knowledge articles are available when your administrator activates the Knowledge Management Advanced plugin (com.snc.knowledge_advanced).

    The following table describes the recipient list of notifications for an AQI review on knowledge articles and the associated conditions when a notification is sent.

    Table 6. Recipient list of the email notification for AQI reviews
    Notification Condition Recipients
    KM: AQI on Article An AQI was performed and submitted on a knowledge article with the ownership group feature disabled.

    User (author or reviser) who last updated the article
    KM: AQI on Ownership Group Article An AQI was performed and submitted on a knowledge article with the ownership group feature enabled.
    • User (author or reviser) who last updated the article
    • Ownership group
    Note:
    An email notification is sent to a reviser of a knowledge article when the article versioning feature is enabled.