The difference between internal and external knowledge bases

A knowledge base in Jira Service Managementis a collection of articles and documents that you can set up and make available to your customers and your team members. There are two types of knowledge bases available: internal (agent-facing) and external (customer-facing). Read how to set up a knowledge base.

By separating internal and external knowledge bases, you can control who can access specific information, protect sensitive content, and deliver the right knowledge to the right audience. Space admins can link and manage both types of knowledge bases, ensuring agents and customers have access to the resources they need.

For example, an IT support team might use an internal knowledge base to store detailed instructions for resetting VPN access or provisioning new accounts – information that should not be visible to customers or help seekers. Meanwhile, the external knowledge base might include general troubleshooting steps for common connectivity issues that customers can follow on their own.

External knowledge base

External knowledge bases are intended for customers and end-users. Articles in an external knowledge base can be accessed via customer-facing channels like the help center, portal, and virtual service agent.

These articles answer frequently asked questions, provide how-to guides, and help customers self-serve through the help center. External knowledge bases are accessible to anyone with the appropriate permissions and can be used to deflect common requests before they reach the support team.

Internal knowledge base

Internal knowledge bases are designed for support agents and internal teams. Articles in an internal knowledge base can be accessed via the knowledge base hub within a space by selecting Knowledge Base in the sidebar.

These articles may include runbooks, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and sensitive troubleshooting guides that are only visible to agents and not to customers or help seekers. This helps agents to quickly find step-by-step instructions for resolving issues without searching through multiple systems or relying on tribal knowledge.

Internal knowledge bases and AI

Internal knowledge bases are extremely powerful, as the knowledge they contain will form the foundation for increasingly sophisticated, agent-facing AI capabilities. We encourage the use of internal knowledge bases in addition to external knowledge bases, so that as we build the AI features that rely on this information, teams can leverage AI-powered support experiences.

Examples of how AI features can assist agents include:

• surfacing relevant internal documentation directly in the context of a work item, so agents don’t need to search for the right runbook to determine next steps for a customer.

• surfacing the precise information to be requested when drafting replies automatically, so agents don’t need to browse through internal knowledge or manually locate the relevant section.

How internal and external knowledge bases differ

Internal knowledge bases do not have the following capabilities (that can be found in external knowledge bases):

• Draft support

• Category support

• Support for unlicensed Confluence users

• Permissions management in knowledge base settings for Confluence spaces configured as an internal knowledge base

• The ability to create or edit articles from Jira Service Management in same-site spaces (native or embedded) configured as an internal knowledge base. This also includes the edit capability for AI-generated draft articles.

• The ability to bulk unlink

• The ability create new spaces

• An article view count column (Confluence views).

Managing your internal and external knowledge bases

エージェントの場合:

1. In your project, select Knowledge base.

2. Under the Articles tab, you’ll see Internal and External buttons that allow you to switch between the views of your internal and external knowlege base articles.

3. From here, new articles can only be created for the external knowledge base by selecting Create article.

For admins:

1. サイドバーに表示されるスペース名の横で [その他のアクション (•••)] > [スペース設定] の順に選択します。

2. Select Channels & self service, then Knowledge base.

3. Above the ‘Embedded knowledge base’ heading, you’ll see Internal and External tabs that allow you to switch between the views of your internal and external knowlege base settings and articles. You can use different knowledge sources for each of the internal and external knowledge bases.