KB User's Guide - Documents Tab - Use and Request Buttons for Document Sharing
This document will discuss how to use the features found in the Use Documents from Other Groups screen. Documents include all external documents from other sites as well as the internal documents owned by groups for which you have internal KB access. Viewing and/or using existing documentation can be an informative reference when creating brand new documents and especially for new KB sites looking for relevant content to adopt.
Use Documents from Other Groups
To access the Use Documents from Other Groups page, go to the Documents tab and click on the Use Docs from... link at the very top of the left navigation bar.
Upon clicking on the Use docs from... button, you will be taken to a screen called Use Documents from Other Groups. The image below shows the filters you may use to narrow your search.
This is a summary of the Search filters:
- Find - In this field, you may enter document ID number(s) or keywords
- Search/Priority - This filter defaults to Keywords. You may filter by selection one of the items in the dropdown menu; FTS (Full Text Search), Top, High, Normal and Low search priorities or Exclude. Exclude refers to documents assigned the search priority of Exclude from Search.
- Groups - This dropdown list defaults to All other groups, or you may select one, specific KB group.
- Status - This dropdown list defaults to display all documents that are active. You may also select documents with a status of In Review.
- Age - This filter defaults to 30 days,you may select age ranges between 1 day through 100 days. You may also select All Age.
- CampusAccess - This filter lets you select documents that either Defer to SiteAccess, Ext/Int with campus login or Internal for all campus users. Please see this document for more information on CampusAccess.
- Relevence - The four options in the Relevance dropdown menu show how broadly or narrowly a document is available.
- Limit - This filter limits 25 document results to appear on your screen. You may adjust this limit from 25 to 800 items to appear on your screen. You may click on the Save .CSV button on the lower right of your screen to export your findings.
Once you have the Search filters set as desired, you can begin browsing the list of matching documents. For each document, you will be presented with one of two different options in the Action column: Use or Request.
The Use Button: Access to Documents Shared by other KB Groups
Clicking on the Use button allows you to publish a document directly to your internal KB site. It only appears for documents where the owning group has assigned a topic to the document that has the Public share setting enabled. To learn how the Public share function is enabled/disabled, please refer to Adding Topics: Public Share.
Once you click on the Use button, the document will display in edit mode. Most of the fields and settings are grayed out and subsequently are not editable. However, there are several features you can use to customize the document for your audience, which you can read about here.
The Request Button: Submitting a Request to Share a KB document
These documents do not have topics with the "Public share" setting enabled, therefore, it is necessary to send a direct request to the owning group to have the document published externally. This can be easily done by clicking on the Request button.
Clicking on the Request button will lead to a pop-up window with the Document Sharing Request Form. This form includes the document ID number and the name of the owning KB group, the Title of the document, the Owner's name and email address, the Requester's name and email address. You may write the document owner some additional information about your request in the field provided, if you wish. Click on the Request share button. Once the request is sent, the pop-up window will disappear and you may continue searching through documents shared with your KB group.
Document Owner Receives Request
Once the Document Sharing Request Form is submitted, the document owner and all parties in the Cc and Bcc fields will receive an email. The request will also appear under the Share Requests link in the owning group's Documents tab > Shared Requests link in the KB Admin Tools. The document owner will then click on the Take action link at the far right. The result of the action will be evident to you via email and also via the KB Admin Tools.
The Document Owner can leave a note for the Requester and either Approve or Decline the request. If the share request is approved, the document will appear when the Requester clicks on the Use docs from... link and searches for the specific document ID number(s).
The Requester, upon receiving approval, may open the document owned by another group in edit mode. Most of the fields and settings are grayed out and subsequently are not editable. However, there are several features you can use to customize the document for your audience, which you can read about in the next section.
What You Can Edit
When you are editing another group's document, the following features can be used, as they only affect the document when viewed in your group's KB:
If you click on the plus sign next to Show Other Notes, you will see that the MyGroupNote field is editable. Text entered in that field that will only be visible when the document is viewed on your group's site. For more information about this field, please refer to MyGroupNote.
Just below the MyGroupNote field, you will see ten pairs of small text fields. These can be used to replace parts of the content of this document. For more details, please see KB User's Guide - Documents Tab - Dynamic Content Replacement.
You can assign one or more of your group's topics to the document. This is done in the same way as your own documents.
You can also edit the SiteAccess, however, you may only assign this document to your own internal site. The external site checkbox will be disabled (as indicated by the red arrow in the image below).
***Please send a direct request to the document owner if you would like this document to be published externally.
Finally, when you first open the document in edit mode, the document will initially have the status of Inactive. Please note that, while the document has the status of Inactive in your own KB site, it may be active in other KB sites. After you make the appropriate edits, you may update the status of the document as per the workflow and best practices of your KB group. Click on the Submit button to save your changes.
