KB User's Guide - Documents Tab - Redirect a document via the See Also field

KB groups operate under their own document retention policies. Often, an occasion comes up where a document needs to be completely updated, but it may not be deleted as a result of these policies. Other circumstances where this redirect can be used is when a document is oft referenced, widely bookmarked/ or had a memorable document ID number but still needs to be retired and replaced by widely overhauled information. A document redirect may be set in place. The KB can facilitate a solution seamless to the end user by means of a redirect placed in the See Also also field.

Auto Redirection of an "Obsolete" Document to an Updated Document of Your Choosing

    1. Open your preferred document editor and open the document that will soon be made obsolete.
    2. Enter the Document ID of the updated document in the first position of the See Also field.

      ***Only one document ID number should be in this field for the redirect to work.

In the image below, the SeeAlso field is circled in red, the Document ID number in that field is 12345

example document ID in the See Also field

    1. Set the document that will be made obsolete to the status of Inactive.
    2. Set the Expiration date of the obsolete document to 3000-01-01 00:00:00 by clicking on the Never link .

In the image below, the Never link has been clicked, this action autopopulates the date 3000-01-01 00:00:00 into the Expiration field.

expiration options showing the expiration set to the year 3000 and the Never option circled in red

  1. Click on the Submit button to save your changes.

Check the Redirect on the Live Site

On the Live Site, (attempt to) open the document that has been deactivated by entering the Document ID into the search field. The system will check to see if this "obsolete" document has a Document ID number in the "See Also" field. Next, the KB System verifies that the redirected document is Active, to prevent potential infinite loops. Your link may appear to "jump" to a different but related document. The word redirect will appear in the url.

In the image below, the obsolete document redirected to a document with the ID of XXXXXX. Of course, your updated Document ID number will appear in the place of the XXXXXX.

URL bar showing a KB document link with the document number and redirect circled in red

Finally, you are redirected to the active and superseding document.