Publication review

An article in Review has reached the point where a person should check its usefulness. The Article Reviewer reads its title, category, body and owner together. The question is practical: would another service desk agent know when to use this guidance and what action to take? A clear answer gives the reviewer enough context to decide whether it belongs in the published library.

A review is especially useful when the article grew out of a difficult incident. The person who solved that case may remember details that are absent from the written answer. The reviewer reads from the perspective of someone who was not there. If a step depends on a particular service or asset, that condition belongs in the body of the article.

• Queue. Articles awaiting review are filtered by Review status so a reviewer can work through the current decisions.
• Decision. The reviewer checks the article content and owner before a person changes its status to Published or returns it to Draft.
• Record. The published article keeps its owner and publication date, so the team can tell which version of the guidance is being used.

The status is a working signal. It gives the team a common way to distinguish a draft from a published answer. The article record itself holds the content. A reviewer should read the whole body rather than deciding from the title or category alone.

Choose who may make the publication decision and how the service owner is consulted. A category can cover several services; decide whether one reviewer is enough or whether the relevant service owner must confirm a sensitive instruction. Set a practical standard for completeness: title, category, body and named owner should be present before publication.

Agree what happens when the reviewer spots a mistake. Returning an article to Draft keeps the work visible to the editor. The reviewer can tell the editor exactly which step needs evidence or simpler wording. Also decide when an edit to a published article needs another review. A spelling correction and a changed recovery procedure may call for different handling by the team.

Use a draft about an internal service outage. The editor has written a troubleshooting sequence and assigned the article owner. The reviewer compares the sequence with the incident update history and asks whether the stated recovery action applies to the recorded service. If a crucial condition is absent, the editor revises the body. Then the reviewer reads the new text and makes the publication decision. Check that the published article has a sensible publication date and the right owner for later feedback.

• Articles awaiting review — The review queue with the article body and owner alongside status.
• Published article library — Answers that the service desk can use in current work.
• Article workboard — Draft, review, published and archived material in one status view.

The article publication process follows the reviewer decision. The service question process shows the case information an editor may use. Agree access to the queue during implementation.