Knowledge management · Autessa IT Desk
Knowledge base
Autessa IT Desk includes a knowledge base for knowledge management: an IT knowledge base for runbooks, troubleshooting guides and known errors, and an Employee knowledge base that powers the Help Center. Articles are written from templates in a rich editor, reviewed, published with version history, and retired or restored without losing anything.
The problem
The same questions, answered from memory, again and again
Most service desks answer the same twenty questions every week, and the fix for last month's outage lives in one person's head. Without a knowledge base that is easy to write in and trustworthy to read, agents re-solve solved problems and employees open tickets for things they could have done themselves.
What you get
- Two knowledge bases: IT (runbooks, troubleshooting, known errors, visible to IT) and Employee (how-tos, FAQs and policies, shown in the Help Center).
- Nested categories, such as "Accounts / Passwords", that you can reorder and move; deleting a category moves its articles and sub-categories up a level, so nothing is orphaned.
- Seven starting templates: Blank, Procedure (runbook), Troubleshooting, Known error / workaround, How-to for employees, FAQ, and Policy or announcement.
- A rich editor with headings, lists, callouts (info, tip, warning), a "/" slash menu, and images you can paste, drop or upload.
- A draft, review, published and retired workflow. Every publish saves a numbered version you can compare and restore.
- Expiry dates: after its "valid to" date an article stays readable by IT but search stops serving it.
- Reader feedback: "Was this helpful?" with an optional comment, plus view, helpful and not-helpful counts on every article.
How it works
How does knowledge base work in Autessa IT Desk?
Pick a template
Start a new article from one of the templates. Each one suggests the knowledge base and article type it belongs to and lays out the sections to fill in.
Write in the editor
Write with headings, lists and callouts. Paste or drop screenshots straight into the article; images are stored with the article itself, so they never turn into broken links later.
Submit for review
Send the draft for review. An IT administrator publishes it or sends it back with notes. IT administrators can also publish straight away.
Publish and keep it current
Publishing saves version 1. Later edits to a published article stay unpublished until someone presses Publish changes, which saves the next version. Restoring an old version republishes it as a new version, so history only grows.
Retire or reinstate
Retire an article to hide it from readers. Reinstate it as a draft whenever it is useful again.
Every option
Article fields and options
| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Knowledge base | IT or Employee. Employee articles appear in the Help Center; IT articles are for IT staff. |
| Article type | Article, Runbook, FAQ or Known error. |
| Workflow state | Draft, Review, Published or Retired. |
| Category | Any category in the nested tree for that knowledge base. |
| Short description and keywords | A summary and author-supplied search terms (synonyms are the point) that search weighs heavily. |
| Owner group | The assignment group that owns the article. |
| Valid to | Expiry date. After it, search tools stop serving the article. |
| Version | Bumped on every publish; each version keeps its title, body, author and note. |
| Feedback | Helpful yes or no with a comment; feedback moves through New, Reviewed and Actioned. |
Permissions
Who can do what?
| Role | Can |
|---|---|
| Knowledge author | Write and edit articles, add images and notes, and submit for review, with no ticket powers. |
| IT agent | Write articles, submit them for review, read every IT and Employee article, and leave feedback. |
| IT administrator | Review, publish, retire and restore articles, and manage categories. |
| Employee | Read published, unexpired Employee articles in the Help Center and say whether they helped. |
AI assist
How the IT Desk Assistant helps
The IT Desk Assistant answers questions from your published knowledge and cites the articles it used, with a link to each one. On a new article it can fill the form from text you paste, and you still press Save.
The assistant acts as you, with your role. It fills forms but never saves them, and anything risky waits for you to press Confirm.
About the IT Desk Assistant →Connected
How it connects to the rest of IT Desk
IT DESK FEATURE
Known errors
Marking a problem as a known error writes a draft Known error article with the symptoms, workaround and cause.
IT DESK FEATURE
Knowledge search
Every article is indexed for hybrid keyword and semantic search in the workspace and the Help Center.
IT DESK FEATURE
Runbooks on CIs
A configuration item can point at its runbook, so agents working an incident find the procedure in one click.
IT DESK FEATURE
Help articles on catalog items
A catalog item and a fulfillment step can link a help or runbook article.
IT DESK FEATURE
Help Center
Employee articles show up in Help Center search and open as formatted pages with their images.
AUTESSA PRODUCT
Autessa Autodocs
Capture any runbook automatically: do the fix once in the browser and Autodocs writes the step-by-step guide with screenshots and a replayable workflow.
FAQ
Questions about knowledge base
Does Autessa IT Desk include a knowledge base?
Yes. IT Desk includes knowledge management with two knowledge bases, IT and Employee, nested categories, templates, a review and publish workflow, version history, expiry dates and reader feedback.
Can employees read knowledge articles?
Yes, Employee articles. Published Employee articles that have not expired appear in the Help Center search and open as formatted pages. IT articles such as runbooks stay with IT staff.
Is there version history?
Yes. Every publish saves a numbered version. You can open any earlier version and restore it, which republishes it as a new version so nothing is lost.
Can people write articles without being IT agents?
Yes. The Knowledge author role writes and submits articles with no access to tickets, so subject experts can contribute.
100% customizable, code and all
Make Autessa IT Desk fully your own.
Use it out of the box, then change anything. Ask Autobot, Autessa’s AI builder, for a new field, screen, report, workflow or agent and it builds it into your copy of the app. Or open the code and edit it yourself. Nothing is locked: the app, its data and its code are yours.
Start free and make it yours