Did You Know . . .
It’s easy to keep your KB records updated with the Update Required function?
It has been said that question-and-answer repositories are more trouble than they’re worth because the answers in them so quickly become outdated. We have a couple of responses to that argument:
1. Historical value. It is true that Tony Blair is no longer the Prime Minister of Britain (see GKB # 61539), but with 11/22/2004 entered as the date of the question and the answer, the fact remains that he was PM at that time.
2. Use the Update Required feature to update answers that are known to be temporal, especially if you have a good idea when that information is likely to change, or at least could change. When creating the record, put a date in this field when the record should be revisited. If you work review of the Update Required folder into your regular daily or weekly workflow, you might find it easier than you think to stay on top of “expiring” information.
The following screen images illustrate the field and how to browse for records that are due for update review.
Browsing by the folder retrieves all records that match the date range. If you don’t set a date range, you’ll retrieve all dates. As you can see, you can also set other limitations on the retrieval set, such as subject category, if you’ve used these when you create your local KB records.
Once you select a record to update, there are two ways you can go about that update.
1. You can leave the original information as it is. As mentioned above, since the historical information could be useful, this isn’t a bad idea. In which case you add new information to the Addenda page. This method (illustrated next) adds the date of the addendum.
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The added addendum is visible to the user the next day, after it has been indexed.
2. You can actually change the information in the original answer. In fact, you can change most information in your local KB records. What you cannot change is the date of the original question and answer, however, so actually changing information may not be the best option. You can, of course, add the new information after the original answer, being careful to also note the date, since that won’t be automatically added in this case.
You do need editorial privileges to update KB records. Please see your QuestionPoint administrator if you want this ability.
Please contact [email protected] if you have questions.
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