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Remedy ITSM

The Pulse: Understanding and influencing

whats trending in Remedy Knowledge
Management
Posted by Akash Pathak in Remedy ITSM on Jul 12, 2013 11:37:05 AM

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AcommonquestionrecentlyishowdoesRemedyKnowledgeManagementdeterminetherelevanceofitsresults?Thereareseveral
factorsinvolved,butoneofthemisaboostfactorforarticlesthatareusedorviewed,sothemostusedonesfloattothetop.Sowhats
trendinginRemedyKnowledgeManagement?Well,inaway,questionsabouttrendinginRemedyKnowledgeManagement.

InthisversionofRKMblogletscoverthemosttrendingtopicaroundRKMsearchesHowDoesRemedyknowledgeSearcha.k.aFTS
work?
First,afewhighlevelconcepts:
LuceneisusedastheunderlyingSearchEnginebyARSystemFullTextSearch(FTS)andthealgorithmusedbyLucenedictatesthe
relevanceofthesearchedcontent.TherearesomeconfigurableparametersinFTSwhichmodifythebehaviorofRemedy
KnowledgeManagement.
Ideally,thecontentaloneshoulddictatetherelevancyofthearticle.Avoidadjustingtherulestoaccommodatecornercasesand
poorlywrittenarticles.Theactualresultsreturnedwillremainsameonlytheirpositionwithintheresultslistwillbeaffectedby
theseguidelines

InRKMtherearefewwaystoinfluencetherelevancyofarticles:
BycontrollingtheWeightofcertainspecialFieldsunderstoodbyFullTextSearch
BycontrollingtheBoostIncrementswhenanarticleisViewedVsUsed.

ControllingtheWeightofFTSfields
FTS provides an ability to define weight for 3 special fields: viz Title, Keyword and Environment. These are mapped by every form
registeredwithFTSforindexingandsearching.Outofthebox,thedefaultweightsofthesefieldsaresettovalueof1thatisatpar
withtheothercontentfieldsonthearticle.IncaseofRKM,RKM:KnowledgeArticleManagerwhichstoresthekeymetadataofanarticle,
hasthese3fieldsmappedwithFTS.Sobycontrollingtheweightforthese3fields,onecanaffecttherelevancyofthearticleresults.

Thiscanbedoneintwosteps:
FirststepistoincreasetheweightsofthesefieldsatFTSlevel.ThisisdonebygoingasanAdministratortoServerInformationform
inARSystemAdministrationConsoleandthenmovingtoFTStabinthatform:

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Hereonecanincreasethefieldweightsothatthecontentin
thesefieldsgetshigherweightwhilecalculatingrelevancyof
thearticlebyLucene.

We have observed noticeable impact on relevancy of the

article for a database of at least 4,000 articles when Title
Fieldweightwasincreasedtotherangeof48.Thatmeans
thearticleswherethesearchkeywordsenteredhadabettermatchwiththeTitlefieldofthearticle,thosearticleswouldshowuphigher
[withinfirst23pages]inthesearchresults.

SimilarlywhenKeywordsFieldsweightwasincreasedtotherangeof25,againwehaveobservednoticeableimpactontherelevancyof
the articles having matching keywords for above database.Obviously, increasing the weight of titles and keywords depends on using
goodtitlesinyourcontent,andsomewhatpredictableuseofkeywords,aswewilldiscussbelow.
NoteAR7.6.04allowsonlyamaxvalueof2.0forthesefields.Henceoneneedstofollowaworkaroundtotakethevalueofthese
fieldsbeyond2.0.

Workaroundfirstmodifythevalueto2.0forthefieldsunderconsiderationandSavetheinformation.Nowopenar.cfgfileandlocate
.Itwilllooksomethinglikethis:
MFSKeywordsFieldWeight:2
MFSEnvironmentFieldWeight:2
MFSTitleFieldWeight:2
Nowchangetheweightbeyond2.0say3.5andsavethear.cfgfile.Oneneedstobecarefulsothatnootherundesirablechangesare
madetothear.cfgfile.Withthisworkaroundthevaluegetsincreasedbeyond2.0.ThisrequiresaARServerrestartforthesevaluesto
takeeffect.

ThesecondstepistoensurethatthearticlesofinteresthaveproperwordsappearingintheTitleaswellasKeywordsfield.Theweight
configurationsettingsallowyoutousethesefieldsmoreheavily.However,thereisnosubstituteforgoodcontent.OverweightingTitle
andkeywordsmayrevealpoorcontenttitleoruseofkeywords.
For example. for the below article, if this article is
expected to be searched with higher relevancy on
Database,Install,Setupkeywordsthenensurethat
thesewordsappearinTitleand/orKeywordsfieldofthat
article.

ControllingBoostIncrements
RKMautomaticallyboostsanarticlewhenitisviewedorused.ItisconsideredusedwhenitisrelatedtoaServiceRequestinBMC
ServiceRequestManagement(SRM)oranincidentinBMCRemedyServiceDesk.Thisinfluencestherelevancyofthearticleinthe
searchresults.ThisboostfactoriscontrolledviaRKMApplicationConfigurationform.

Therearetwosettings:ViewBoostIncrementandUseBoost
Increment. Out of the box, they are set as 0.001 and 0.01
respectively.Thatmeans,theirimpactiskeptverymoderated
andUsinganarticleboosts10timeshighercomparedtoonly
viewingit.

Weobservednoticeableimpactonrelevancyofthearticlefor
adatabaseofatleast4,000articleswhentheBoostIncrement
wassetintherangeof0.0050.01forViewCountand0.050.1forUseCount.Thismakesiteasierforuserstofindarticlestheyknow
theyhaveusedbefore,withoutfloodingtheresultswithonlycommonissues.

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In this post, I shared some ideas on settings and guidelines that can help, but I would love to know what worked or didnt work well for you. Did
you find a happy balance between increasing weights and adjusting boost factors? What values worked best for you? Did encounter bad content
which rose to the top of the results and had to be adjusted?
Please post your feedback by adding comments below.
5115Views

Tags: rkm, management, search, text, full, knowledge, pluse

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6 Comments
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Anne Brock Jul 12, 2013 12:06 PM

Great writeup! Thanks! Haven't tried the suggestions yet, but bookmarked for later use!
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Akash Pathak Jul 12, 2013 12:08 PM (in response to Anne Brock)

Thank you Anne:)

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Chad Wilhelm Mar 24, 2014 8:23 AM

Hello,

How could you bring the search results for Reference Template before the How To Template? I looked in the Manage Knowledge Sources
there is no order.

Thanks,
Chad Wilhelm
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Akash Pathak Mar 24, 2014 11:04 AM (in response to Chad Wilhelm)

Hi Chad

You cant specify order for RKM templates to return in searches in one specific manner it depends on the weight per my
understanding however you can goto Advanced search and select the template for which you want results.

Thanks
Akash
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Nitin Lahane Jul 21, 2014 2:08 AM

Very well written

Appreciate it

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Sandeep Das Nov 26, 2014 5:07 PM

How is the Environment field set on the article? Can we set the Environment field weight to 0?
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