FS-DOC-03Operations
Process Runbook / SOP
Knowledge Base Maintenance
[YourCompany.com] · Customer Support Department · Prepared by FullSpec · [Today's Date]
This runbook is your day-to-day operating guide for the Knowledge Base Maintenance automation. It covers how the process runs end to end, what the system handles on its own, and exactly where your team needs to act. FullSpec has built and configured every automated step described here. Your team's responsibility is limited to reviewing and approving article drafts inside Google Docs. Keep this document accessible to anyone on the support team who may need to cover the approval step or respond to an exception.
01Process overview
The Knowledge Base Maintenance process monitors your helpdesk continuously for ticket clusters that signal a stale or missing help article. When a threshold is crossed, an AI agent scores the relevant article, a second agent drafts a suggested revision in Google Docs, and the draft is routed to a manager for a single approval decision. Once approved, the article is published to the Intercom help centre automatically, the Notion tracker is updated, and a Slack confirmation is sent to the support channel. The process runs at a volume of approximately 30 to 50 article reviews per month and reduces weekly maintenance time from five hours to around one hour.
Process name
Knowledge Base Maintenance
Trigger
Five or more support tickets on the same topic detected within a rolling seven-day window, polled daily by the automation platform
Final output
Updated help article published in Intercom, Notion tracker row marked complete, Slack confirmation sent to support channel
Agents running
Ticket Trend Analyst, Article Draft Writer, Publish and Audit Agent
Tools involved
Zendesk, Intercom, Google Docs, Notion, Slack
Weekly volume
Approximately 7 to 12 article review cycles per week (30 to 50 per month)
Human checkpoint
Manager reviews and approves or edits the Google Doc draft before publication
Process owner
Support Manager (see Section 04 for contact details)
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02Step-by-step: what happens and who acts
What you actually need to do: There is one human step in this entire process. When you receive a Slack alert telling you a draft is ready, open the linked Google Doc, read the suggested revision, and either add an approval comment or edit the draft and then approve it. Everything before and after that single action is handled automatically by the FullSpec-built agents.
Step
What happens
Who acts
Type
1
The automation platform polls Zendesk daily. When five or more tickets on the same topic are detected within a seven-day rolling window, the workflow is triggered and the ticket cluster is passed to the Ticket Trend Analyst agent.
Automation
Automated
2
The Ticket Trend Analyst agent reads the grouped tickets, identifies the knowledge base article most likely to be causing the confusion, and produces a staleness and accuracy score. If the score passes the update threshold, the workflow continues. If not, the cluster is logged and no further action is taken.
Ticket Trend Analyst agent
Automated
3
The Article Draft Writer agent takes the flagged article text and the associated ticket content, then generates a structured revision draft inside a new Google Doc. The draft highlights what has changed and why, with tracked changes so the reviewer can see every suggested edit at a glance.
Article Draft Writer agent
Automated
4
The automation platform creates a new row in the Notion knowledge base review tracker, recording the article title, the number of tickets behind the flag, a link to the Google Doc draft, the suggested priority level, and the assigned reviewer's name.
Automation platform via Notion
Automated
5
A formatted Slack message is posted to the support manager channel. The message includes a one-line summary of what triggered the review, a direct link to the Google Doc draft, and the suggested priority. No action is required from you yet, this is for awareness.
Automation platform via Slack
Automated
6
You open the linked Google Doc, read the draft and the tracked changes, and make one of two decisions: add an approval comment to confirm the draft is ready to publish, or edit the content directly and then add the approval comment once you are satisfied. This is the only step that requires your attention.
Support Manager (you)
Human
7
The Publish and Audit Agent detects the approval comment on the Google Doc and pushes the approved article content to the live Intercom help centre, updating the existing article in place. The agent uses scoped API credentials that allow updates to existing articles only, not creation or deletion.
Publish and Audit Agent
Automated
8
The automation platform marks the Notion tracker row as complete and records the publish date and time, giving the team a running audit log of every article change made through the process.
Automation platform via Notion
Automated
9
A final Slack confirmation message is posted to the support channel confirming the article has been published, with a link to the live help centre article for reference.
Automation platform via Slack
Automated
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03Handling exceptions
Situation
What the system does
What you do
Ticket cluster detected but no matching article found in the knowledge base
The Ticket Trend Analyst logs the cluster with a note that no article exists. A Notion row is created with status 'New article needed' and a Slack alert is sent to the support manager channel flagging a content gap rather than a revision.
Review the Slack alert and decide whether to create a new article manually or add it to a future content sprint. The automation cannot create net-new articles without a base document to work from.
The same article is flagged by two separate ticket clusters at the same time (duplicate trigger)
The system checks the Notion tracker before creating a new row. If an active review task already exists for that article, the second trigger is merged into the existing task and the ticket count is updated rather than a duplicate row being created.
No action needed. Check the existing Notion row to confirm the additional ticket context has been added if the topic feels significantly different from the first cluster.
Draft quality is poor because ticket notes are too short or vague to generate useful content
The Article Draft Writer will still produce a draft, but it will contain placeholder sections marked with a note explaining that ticket context was insufficient. The Slack alert will flag the draft as low confidence.
Open the Google Doc, review the low-confidence sections, and fill in the correct information based on your product knowledge before approving. Do not approve a draft with unfilled placeholder sections.
Manager does not approve or edit the draft within five business days
The automation sends a reminder Slack message to the manager channel at the 48-hour and five-day marks. After five business days with no action, the Notion row is escalated to 'Overdue' status and the operations lead is notified.
If you receive an overdue alert, either approve the draft, leave a comment requesting a specific change, or mark the Notion row as 'On hold' with a note explaining why it is paused. This stops the escalation cycle.
Intercom API is unavailable and the publish step fails
The Publish and Audit Agent retries the publish action three times at ten-minute intervals. If all three attempts fail, the Notion row is updated with status 'Publish failed' and an error alert is sent to the support manager and to support@gofullspec.com.
Check the Intercom status page for an outage. If there is a known outage, wait for resolution and the agent will retry automatically once connectivity is restored. If the outage is resolved but publish still fails, contact FullSpec support at support@gofullspec.com with the Notion row link.
Zendesk API credentials expire or are revoked and the daily poll cannot run
The daily trigger fails silently on the first attempt and sends an error notification to the process owner via Slack within one hour of the failed poll. The automation pauses until credentials are restored.
Contact your Zendesk administrator to confirm the API token is still active and has not been rotated or revoked. Once the token is confirmed or replaced, notify FullSpec support at support@gofullspec.com so the credential can be updated in the automation platform.
04Who to contact and when
Fill in the rows marked with placeholders once your team is confirmed. Keep this table updated whenever roles change. The FullSpec rows are fixed and do not need to be edited.
Role
Name
How to reach them
Process owner (Support Manager)
Rachel Kim
[Rep email]
Backup approver (Support Agent)
Tom Ashby
[Rep email]
Operations lead (escalation contact)
Priya Nair
[Rep email]
Zendesk administrator
[Your name]
[Rep email]
Intercom administrator
[Your name]
[Rep email]
FullSpec builder (build and change requests)
FullSpec team
support@gofullspec.com
FullSpec support (errors, outages, urgent issues)
FullSpec support
support@gofullspec.com
For any error that stops an article from being published, or any Slack alert you do not recognise, contact FullSpec support at support@gofullspec.com and include the Notion row link or the article name so the team can investigate quickly.
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05Ongoing maintenance
Whenever a new product feature or change is released
Check whether any existing help articles reference the affected workflows. If articles need updating outside a natural ticket cluster trigger, create a Notion review row manually and link the article. The Article Draft Writer can be triggered manually by the FullSpec team if needed.
Support Manager
Whenever an article template or tone of voice guideline changes
Notify FullSpec support so the Article Draft Writer agent prompt can be updated to reflect the new structure or style. Using the old template will cause drafts to be formatted incorrectly and will require heavier manual editing.
Support Manager + FullSpec team
Monthly spot-check (first week of each month)
Open the Notion tracker and review the last 30 days of completed rows. Confirm that published articles match what was in the approved Google Doc drafts. Spot-check three to five live articles in the Intercom help centre against their corresponding Notion records.
Support Manager
Weekly error log review (every Monday)
Check the Notion tracker for any rows with status 'Publish failed', 'Overdue', or 'Low confidence'. Resolve or escalate each one before the working week begins. Forward any unresolved publish failures to support@gofullspec.com.
Support Manager
Whenever a team member joins, leaves, or changes role
Update the contact table in Section 04 of this document. Notify FullSpec support so that Slack routing rules and Notion reviewer assignments can be updated to reflect the new team structure. Do not leave a departed team member as the assigned reviewer in active Notion rows.
Operations Lead + FullSpec team
Quarterly volume review (every three months)
Review the total number of article review cycles completed in the quarter against the target of 30 to 50 per month. If ticket volume has grown significantly, discuss with FullSpec whether the daily poll frequency or the five-ticket cluster threshold needs to be adjusted to keep pace.
Operations Lead + FullSpec team
The single most common maintenance issue for this process is an outdated reviewer assignment in Notion. When a team member leaves or changes role, active Notion rows can remain assigned to them indefinitely, causing review tasks to sit unapproved with no visible owner. Update reviewer assignments in Notion and notify FullSpec support whenever your team structure changes.
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