Share Point 2010 Site Solutions – Knowledge Base

- Knowledge Base

• In this solution I will be illustrating how to build an IT Knowledge Base using SharePoint 2010 and a 3rd party SharePoint tool named Vizit by Atalasoft. This provides document viewing capabilities in a dedicated window pane also known as a document viewer.

• The knowledge base can be built with or without the 3rd Party Vizit tool as it only relates to the final presentation of the documents.

• This solution is designed for an IT Department to provide a knowledge base for end users to reference common IT questions/requests presented as documents

Greg Gignac - SharePoint ConsultantMy SharePoint Portfolio

The complete solution provides;

From the IT Perspective

•An easy, secure structure for IT personnel to upload IT reference documents using various file types

•Assignable Categories – utilize current or ad hoc categories

•Include a “Web Reference” link to external or internal web address information

•Automatically assign an ID to each knowledge item for ease of reference and/or sorting

- Knowledge Base


The compete solution provides;

From the End User Perspective

•A quick method to access categorized IT reference material

•Links to the reference material being accessed for comprehensive answer management

•A rating system to provide feedback to IT and fellow end users on the quality of the references being provided

•If Vizit is included, an instantaneous view of different file types inside a window beside the knowledge base that does not require opening by their respective client software(time savings).

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The final solution as seen by the end user

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How to build instructions;

To begin, create a document library; Site Actions, More Options, Library, Document Library. Name it “Knowledge Base”.

- Knowledge Base



Create a new view inside the Knowledge Base document library and name it “Knowledge Contents”.

Choose “Standard View”.

- Knowledge Base



This view will be built in three stages; in the first stage check the “default view” selection and select all of the default (OOTB) columns and settings I would like to include in my library. In this case, we will only require the “ID” column and the “Name (linked to document)” column. (In the second stage we will build all of the custom columns).

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Next, we will create two columns that will be added to the library, a “Knowledge Category” column and “Web Reference” column. The “Knowledge Category”, in my example, is based upon pre-defined choices an IT department has defined as category headings, therefore select the “Choice” column type. The categories were; Access Permission Solutions, Application Solutions, End User Solutions, Hardware Install Solutions, Other, Phone Solutions, Remote User Connectivity Solutions and Security Badge Solutions.

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How to build instructions;For the “Web Reference” column, all of the steps are identical except the column name is “Web Reference” and select the “Hyperlink or Picture” column type and configure as below;

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The last column you will need to add is the ratings column and it is an OOTB column but before you can use this feature it has to be enabled under “Library Settings” as seen below. It is automatically added after following these steps and should appear as the far right column in your library.

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A screenshot of how your library should look with all of your new columns.

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For the third stage, we will apply the “Sort” and “Group By” choices which will complete the Knowledge Base document library. One important item of note and an important step for this solution is to uncheck the “Knowledge Category” column from “Columns” section.

So why did we create the column in the first place?

We are doing this because we do not need the column to be displayed in our solution but we will still be using the column to specify the Knowledge category when documents are added to the document library.

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We will also use the “Knowledge Category” column to group our information together by using the aptly named “Group By” functionThis provides a great end user interface because it allows the expansion and collapsing of your information so you get to control what you would like to see and it is perfectly suited for grouping knowledge base categories.

- Knowledge Base


How to build instructions;Modify the “Knowledge Contents” view so we can apply the sorting and group by functions.

First, we want to sort the rating column so it will display the highest rated knowledge articles at the top and then sort the articles by the number of times they have been rated. This will put the most popular and highest rated articles at the top.

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How to build instructions;Scroll all the way down to the ‘Group By” section and group the “Knowledge Categories” in ascending order which will display the categories alphabetically. Make sure the collapsed choice is selected.

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We now need to create a web part page to display the Document library web part and the Vizit viewer web part. Select Site Actions, New Page, we can name it “kb” to keep it short.

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In the Page Content section, type in “IT Knowledge Base” for the page title and format to 24 pt. Arial font and change the font color to blue, and add any image that you like. You will need to change the Title to “Knowledge Base” because this is the title that will be displayed as the hyperlink in your site navigation

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Scroll to the bottom of the page and add the “Knowledge Base” web part that SharePoint automatically created for you to the top left web part zone

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In the top right web part zone follow the same steps and add the Vizit web part. (Remember the 3rd party viewer from Atalasoft that allows you to view file types by clicking on the magnifying glass. You will need to have that installed to provide the document viewer).

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The last step is to configure the web parts so they will display on the page correctly.

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To edit a web part, check the corner of the web part and select “edit web part” from the drop down.

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How to build instructions;The Knowledge Base web part will require three items to be configured;1. Select the view to the “Knowledge Contents” under list Views (displays the view we configured earlier)

2. Change the title to read “Knowledge Contents” under Appearance (this is the title that will be displayed in the title bar of the web part)

3. Change the chrome type to “Title and Border” under Appearance (so it will display the title and border)

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The Vizit web part has three items to be configured;

1. Check the embed check box2. Set the height to 525 px3. Set the width to 400 px

That’s it!

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Documents

Share Point 2010 Site Solutions – Knowledge Base