Capture and share your team’s collective knowledge
Published: July 14, 2006
On every customer service team there are those people who have “the knowledge.” They know the problems customers face and the solutions. They have tricks and tips that help them to work more efficiently. Everyone goes to them for answers, which can mean interruptions to their work.
Your company may also have information, such as product guides, data sheets, and schematics that everyone should have access to. Hard copies of these items can end up lost on someone’s desk. As a CSR Manager, you can make all this critical knowledge available to everyone in your customer service team by capturing it in knowledge base articles.
In Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0, the knowledge base can be a storehouse of useful information and resources for your organization. Articles can contain solutions to common problems, procedures, owner’s guides for products, and any other information that helps your customer service representatives (CSRs) give your customers timely and accurate customer service.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM includes an automatic workflow for the article publishing process. As articles move through the process, Microsoft Dynamics CRM moves them into the appropriate folder: Draft, Unapproved, Published. Anyone with a CSR or CSR Manager security role can write and submit articles for approval, but only someone with the CSR Manager security role can view the Unapproved folder to approve or reject articles. The Publish Article privilege, which is part of the CSR Manager security role, is the specific privilege that allows you to complete these tasks. When an article is rejected, the author can revise and resubmit it. When an article is approved, it is automatically published to the knowledge base and available to the rest of your organization.
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Best practices to consider before articles are written
If you want articles to be authored by multiple people in your organization, it is useful to set up guidelines and best practices for your team beforehand, such as:
| • | Set up subjects in the subject tree before articles are written. This will help you organize the articles and help people in your organization find information quickly. You can find the subject tree in the Settings area. |
| • | Prepare your organization’s article templates to encourage CSRs to write articles that include all the necessary information. For more information about templates, see the following section. |
| • | Add the contents of your product guides, instruction sheets, and instruction booklets to the knowledge base for fast access and searching. You cannot attach files to articles, but you can copy and paste the contents of the original files into articles. |
| • | Encourage all CSRs to enter corrections and additional information for articles on the Comment tab for articles they use. They can even include suggestions for additional keywords to help with future searches. |
| • | Set up a regular schedule for you to review and approve new articles. |
| • | Track which articles are being used most often with the Top Knowledge Base Articles report. |
Preparing article templates
Microsoft Dynamics CRM uses templates to determine the layout and formatting of an article. Templates are frameworks for articles and usually contain two or more sections, such as a question section and an answer section. Every article starts with an article template.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM includes several article templates that you can use right away. You can find them in the Settings area. You can make it easier for your CSRs to select the correct templates by deactivating templates that you do not want them to use.
To ensure that articles contain all the necessary information, you can customize existing templates with meaningful section headings, instructional text, and even boilerplate text that describes the information to include in each section. For example, if you want part numbers included in all product articles, add a section for part numbers, and then give an example of the part numbers and the format to use. Any instructions or examples displayed in a template will disappear once the author starts typing in the section.
Writing and publishing an article
This section describes a publishing cycle that includes a CSR as the author of the article, and you, the CSR Manager, as the approver of the article.
Create an article
You, as the CSR Manager, or any of your CSRs, can write an article. Articles must be submitted for approval once the writing is completed.
1. | In the Navigation Pane, click Service, and then click Knowledge Base. |
2. | On the Actions toolbar, click New. |
3. | In the Select a Template dialog box, select the template you want to use, and then click OK. |
4. | In the Title box, type a title for the article. |
5. | Next to the Subject box, click Lookup. |
6. | In the Subject Lookup dialog box, select the subject you want, and then click OK.
If the subject you want does not appear in the list, contact your system administrator. |
7. | In the Keywords box, type the keywords that are relevant to this article and separate each keyword with a comma. To increase the likelihood that the words users search with will return the correct articles, include alternate spellings and terminology in the keywords, such as bike, bicycle, and trike. |
8. | To write the content, click in a section of the form and begin typing.
Use the editing tools on the Formatting toolbar to format your text. You cannot attach files to articles or include images in articles or change sections. (Sections are defined in the article template.) You cannot upload or import articles, but you can copy and paste text from Microsoft Word and retain most of the formatting. |
9. | Click Save and Close. |
Microsoft CRM automatically puts the article in the Draft folder in the Knowledge Base area. You can reopen the article and continue working on it at any time.
Submit the article for approval
Before submitting the article for approval, if there are procedures in the article, it is a good practice to have another person use the procedure to complete the task and check for any errors or missing steps.
1. | On the Article Queues tab, click the Draft folder to display the list of articles. |
2. | Select the article you want to submit for approval and publishing. You can double-click the article to open it, if you want to review it before submission. |
3. | On the Actions toolbar, click Submit. |
4. | In the confirmation message, click OK. |
Microsoft CRM moves the article to the Unapproved folder where it is ready to be reviewed.
You can review, and then approve or reject the article. When an article is rejected, the article is returned to the Draft folder. When an article is approved, it is automatically published to the knowledge base and is available to other users in Microsoft CRM within about 15 minutes.
Reject the article
If an article is incomplete or incorrect, you can reject it.
1. | On the Article Queues tab, click the Unapproved folder, and open an article that is pending approval. |
2. | After you have reviewed the article, on the Actions toolbar, click Reject to reject the article. |
3. | In the Provide a Reason dialog box, type a comment or explanation to the author in the box, and then click OK. |
4. | Click Save and Close.
Rejected articles are returned to the Draft folder for revision. |
Revise and resubmit a rejected article
Articles can be revised and resubmitted by anyone, not just the original author.
1. | On the Article Queues tab, click the Draft folder to display the list of articles. |
2. | Open the article that contains the content you want to change. |
3. | To view the comments, click the Comments tab, and double-click a comment to open it. |
4. | Make your changes. |
5. | On the Comments tab, delete any comments that you have addressed or add your comments back to the approver. |
6. | Click Save, and then click Submit. |
Microsoft CRM moves the article to the Unapproved folder.
Approve and publish the article
When you approve an article, Microsoft Dynamics CRM automatically publishes it to the knowledge base.
1. | On the Article Queues tab, click the Unapproved folder, and open an article that is pending approval. |
2. | After you have reviewed the article, on the Actions toolbar, click Approve, and then click Close. |
3. | Microsoft CRM moves the approved article to the Published folder. |
CSRs and other users can see the article after about 15 minutes.
As a final tip, articles are only as good as in the information in them. Encourage your CSRs to add comments regarding corrections and additions to articles as they use them. Set up a regular schedule to review new and existing articles to make sure that articles will be useful to everyone in your organization. In the end, it is your customers who will benefit the most.
