Overview

---

Before creating a new article, it is important to check for existing knowledge resources. These resources could exist in the Knowledge Base, internal documentation, on Blink, or vendor's webpage.  

Goals

---

• Avoid creating duplicate, overlapping knowledge articles for the same topic
• If existing documentation is missing important information, update or add information instead of creating a whole new page
• Avoid creating a different version of similar knowledge resources posted on other UC San Diego sites
  
  

Steps to Take

---

Search for Duplicates

Check for duplicate KB article with same or similar topic.

1. Navigate to Self-Service --> Knowledge
2. Type related keywords in the Search bar and review related results 
3. If you find an existing an articles that is missing important information, 
   
   1. If you are able to edit, update article with missing information and submit for approval
   2. If you cannot edit, contact article creator or knowledge base manager notifying them of missing information

Search for Other Resources

Before creating an article, check for existing knowledge resources outside of SNOW.  

1. Search Blink for existing resource
   
   • Select All UCSD Sites when searching Blink
2. Search internal documentation (Collab, Sharepoint, Jira) for existing resources
3. Search in Google for external existing resource 
   
   • This ensures that we are searching vendor or manufacturer documentation
4. If you find existing knowledge resource on a UC San Diego website or internal documentation, create a new Knowledge Base article with this information.
   
   • You may need to reformat the information to fit the a specific article type
5. If you find an existing external resource (vendor or manufacturer's documentation), there is no need to recreate this content.  Create a KB article with a brief overview of the topic and link to the vendor's content - be sure to let the user know that this link takes them to the vendor's documentation.  
   
   • e.g. Google has a support page dedicated to Back up & sync files with Google Drive