Search for knowledge documents from the Knowledge tab and from the Administration tab returns different results

Products

• CA Service Desk Manager
• CA Service Management - Service Desk Manager

Issue/Introduction

There are two ways of searching for all knowledge documents. These are:

1. Click on the "Knowledge" tab, then click on "Top".

2. Click on the "Administration" tab, open the "Knowledge" folder, and then open the "Knowledge Categories" subfolder; next, in the new Window, click on "Top" and then click on "Search".

The results returned by method #1 may be different than the results returned by method #2. Why are the number of documents returned different?

Environment

Release: 14.1 and higher
Component: CA Service Desk Manager

Resolution

When you search from the "Knowledge" tab (i.e. method #1), the Knowledge Base Filter is used and any documents that have been replaced are not listed. The out-of-the-box default for the filter is set to search for documents that are in "Published" status only.

To confirm the current filter settings, click on "Show Knowledge Base Filter". Additionally, note that there is nothing written in the Additional Search Arguments field.

When you search from the "Administration" tab (.e. method #2), a different filter is applied.

To confirm the current filter settings, when viewing the list of results, click on "Advanced Search". Additionally, note that the Additional Search Arguments field contains:

(DOC_LINKS.INDEX_ID=1 or DOC_LINKS.RELATIONAL_ID like '1-%') AND ACTIVE_STATE>=0

At the database level, the status of a knowledge document is tracked via the value of the ACTIVE_STATE attribute of the SKELETONS table. For a Published document, the ACTIVE_STATE is "0"; for a document that is in Draft status or in Rework-Draft status, there is a corresponding document for which the ACTIVE_STATE is "1"; for a Retired document, the ACTIVE_STATE is "2"; for replaced documents, the ACTIVE_STATE is negative, for example, the value may be "-101" or "-102". For a complete list of the documents that exist in the database and their corresponding ACTIVE_STATE value, you could run the following command:

pdm_extract -f "select ACTIVE_STATE,id,pers_id from SKELETONS"