This page provides a list of commonly-used TDX knowledge terms and their explanations. Note that this is not an exhaustive list of definitions, and the intent is to add more terms in the future.
In this article:
Knowledge Base
The UMN TDX Knowledge Base (KB) is a self-service library of how-to directions for the processes, services, and technologies that support daily information technology (IT) operations.
Subject
The Subject is the title of an article. Properly-formed subjects greatly help with both searching for and identifying which article to use.
Refer to Guidelines for Writing Knowledge Article Subjects (Titles).
Sometimes the status of an article is denoted at the beginning of its title.
- An article in a draft state should have WORK IN PROGRESS: at the beginning of its title.
- An archived article should have ARCHIVED: at the beginning of its title.
Article Summary
The Article Summary field displays in search results for knowledge articles, both within the Knowledge Base and when searching for knowledge from an Incident. Article summaries are ideally under 100 characters and should contain information based on knowledge article type.
| Article Type | Information to Include |
|---|---|
| Incident Models | List of the applicable technologies |
| Other article types | A short statement that clarifies the title, if necessary |
| Published articles | A copy of the first sentence of the article |
Status
An article's Status identifies where it is in the knowledge workflow. For a detailed description of article statuses, refer to Article Status and Lifecycle Overview.
Approved
An Approved article is one that has been fully reviewed and approved for use by an Editor for daily IT support operations. For a detailed description of article statuses, refer to Article Status and Lifecycle Overview.
An article needs to have an Approved status in order to appear for other Technicians when they browse the Knowledge Base.
Owner
The Owner of an article indicates who manages and can edit an article. Articles should be owned by a Group (formerly Assignment Group).
Published
Once an article is Approved, it can also be published. A Published article is one intended for audiences beyond Technicians. Only Global Knowledge Editors can flag articles as Published (those without Global Knowledge Editor access will not see this option appear in their TDX editing interface).
There are three levels of publishing that affect who can view an article:
- Not Published: approved for daily IT operations by support staff, but contains information that is not appropriate for an audience beyond Technicians.
- Published-Restricted: approved for daily IT support operations, and contains information that is appropriate and intended only for the University community.
- Published-Unrestricted: approved for daily IT support operations, and contains information that is appropriate and intended for the general public.
An article that is both Approved and Published is pushed to the Technology Help website (it.umn.edu), and is also available by logging in to TDX with a UMN account.
- To determine the appropriate level of publishing for an article, refer to Put Restricted Content in the TDX Knowledge Base.
- To understand how content is pushed from TDX to the IT website, refer to TDX Knowledge and Drupal: Content Availability and Linking.
Public
Within the TDX interface is the option to set an article's view permissions to Public. When an article is marked as Public, it means anyone in the world with the link can view it in TDX, including unauthenticated users.
This Public setting is NEVER used because no one outside of the University should be able to access articles directly from the TDX knowledge base. The Technology Help website is how information may be shared with and accessed by the general public.
An article that is considered "public-facing" may be one visible to anyone who can log in with a University account (Authenticated User), or it may be one that is visible to anyone on the Internet (Unauthenticated User).
For more information on assessing an article's content and intended audience to determine the appropriate level of access, refer to the following KB articles:
- TDX Knowledge: Restrict Access to Content
- TDX Knowledge: Understanding the Restrict Access and Publishing Settings
- Technology Help Website: Put Restricted Content in the TDX Knowledge Base
Restricted
An article that is Restricted indicates its content contains sensitive and/or confidential information that only certain audiences are permitted to view.
Aligning with the three levels of article publishing, there are three Restrict Access settings:
- Not Published, Restricted-Internal: content includes information that only Technicians should view
- Published-Restricted: content includes information that the larger University community may view as Authenticated Users, but the general public (Unauthenticated Users) should not.
- Published-Unrestricted: content includes information that anyone anywhere may view.
To protect against risks such as abuse or social engineering, it is important to consider the appropriate level of view access for an article and its content. Sometimes, even knowing an article exists should be restricted to a limited audience.
Determining the appropriate level of article restriction includes assessing both the content of the article and the article's intended audience. If the appropriate Restrict Access setting does not align with the view permissions (Published setting) for the article's intended audience (e.g. a review of the content indicates the article should be Published-Restricted, but it's an article intended for the general public), you may need to change your intended audience or else edit the article content so that it meets the appropriate Restrict Access criteria for the intended audience.
For more information on assessing an article's content and intended audience to determine the appropriate level of access, refer to the following KB articles: