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 Consultant
My SharePoint Portfolio

- Knowledge Base

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).

- Knowledge Base

The final solution as seen by the end user


- Knowledge Base

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).


- Knowledge Base


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.


- Knowledge Base



- Knowledge Base

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;


- Knowledge Base
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.


- Knowledge Base

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


- Knowledge Base
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.

- Knowledge Base

We will also use the “Knowledge
Category” column to group our
information together by using the aptly
named “Group By” function
This 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
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.


- Knowledge Base
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.


- Knowledge Base
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.


- Knowledge Base
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


- Knowledge Base
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


- Knowledge Base

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).

- Knowledge Base

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


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


- Knowledge Base
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)


- Knowledge Base

The Vizit web part has three items
to be configured;

1. Check the embed check box
2. Set the height to 525 px
3. Set the width to 400 px

That’s it!


Share Point 2010 Site Solutions – Knowledge Base

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