Article Templates

Microsoft CRM uses the Knowledge Base entity to capture information about a company's products, services,
or support techniques. A Knowledge Base allows users to discover solutions to problems that someone else
has already solved. A Knowledge Base consists of many different Articles, and Figure 2-4 shows a sampleArticle for buying a properly sized bicycle.When users create a new Article, they must first select an Article template that specifies the structure of the
information that should be contained in the Article. You can create an Article template by browsing to the
Templates section of the Settings area, clicking Article Templates, and then clicking the New button on thegrid toolbar.

In this example, every Article using this template will include a Summary section and an Additional Comments
section. Of course, you can create multiple Article templates and structure them with as many different
sections as you deem necessary. In addition, you can control the formatting of the text that appears in each
Article by using the buttons that appear above the Article Title text. Some typical types of Knowledge Base
Articles include:

General use

Simple procedure

Detailed procedure

Question and answer / frequently asked questions

Troubleshooting sequence

You might want to create a unique Article template for each type of Knowledge Base content that your
organization uses.

Important New Articles must go through an approval process before users can access them. In the
Knowledge Base area of the user interface, users submit Articles for approval. Then
administrators and managers with the correct security privileges can approve the
unapproved Articles so that they become published.