Understand All Articles authorship and the Top authors report

Updated Wednesday, October 28, 2026 · Marcel Gravelle

The person who created an article record, the person first associated with its authoring workflow and the people who later improved it may be different. Supportbench exposes separate attribution fields so you can investigate that history. The Top authors report counts eligible article records by their original creator and creation date; it does not transfer credit to a later reviewer or publisher.

At a glance

For: knowledge managers, KCS reviewers and support operations leads. Applies to: Supportbench Core.

Start here: Knowledge Base → All Articles; Reporting → Knowledge Base Reports

Check the attribution on an article · Run the Top authors report · Use the correct definition for each field · Worked example: a shared KCS article · Use attribution fairly in support operations · Explain apparent discrepancies

Check the attribution on an article

Open Knowledge Base → All Articles and find the article. Use its exact article ID when similar titles exist.
Open Columns and include Author, Original Creator and First Submission/Publish Date. These fields are hidden by default.
Compare the three values. Original Creator identifies who created the record. Author uses the first qualifying submission/published-version attribution with a creator fallback. The date follows that workflow/fallback sequence.
Open the article’s history when you need to understand later revisions, reviews or publication decisions. These three columns are not a complete contribution ledger.

Run the Top authors report

Open Reporting → Knowledge Base Reports. You need access to the report and its permitted data scope.
Set Report Type to Top authors. The Source selector used by some other knowledge reports is hidden for this report.
Choose Date Mode: Quick range with Starting From and Time Frame, or Custom (From / To). The custom range includes the full To day.
Set optional Teams and Divisions filters and the Top results limit. Use the same scope when comparing runs.
Choose Apply. Read Rank, Agent, Team and Count in the result.
Open the author drilldown, Articles created by this agent, and inspect the article IDs, titles, statuses and Created dates behind the count.

The date range is based on article-record creation for this report. Publishing a revision during the month does not move an older article’s creation into this month.

Use the correct definition for each field

Field/report	Current meaning
All Articles — Original Creator	The agent who originally created the Article record.
All Articles — Author	The earliest qualifying review submitter; otherwise the earliest qualifying non-draft published-version author; otherwise the original record creator.
All Articles — First Submission/Publish Date	The corresponding earliest qualifying review timestamp; otherwise the qualifying non-draft version publication/creation timestamp; otherwise the Article record creation date.
Top authors — Count	Eligible Article records created by that original creator within the selected creation-date range and authorized team/division scope. Later revisions, reviews and publication do not transfer credit.

The report’s eligible article cohort excludes blank titles, Trash, retired status and KCS-blacklisted articles. It is not restricted simply to customer-facing published articles. This matters when interpreting drafts or internal records: a creation count is not a count of new public solutions.

Worked example: a shared KCS article

An agent creates an article record while investigating an equipment fault. A specialist then supplies the complete instructions and submits it for review. A reviewer improves the safety prerequisites, and a publisher releases the article after checking the intended audience.

Original Creator continues to identify the agent who created the record.
Author can identify the earliest qualifying submitter rather than the record creator.
Top authors credits eligible creation to the original creator in the record’s creation period.
The specialist’s improvement, reviewer’s work and later revisions need article history and other evidence; they are not automatically separate Top authors credits.

Use the report as a starting point for a discussion

A high creation count may show active capture, but it does not establish usefulness, correctness or customer success. A person maintaining many existing articles can contribute substantially without creating new records. Review contribution quality and reuse alongside counts.

Use attribution fairly in support operations

For a weekly knowledge review, combine creation activity with the quality of instructions, review backlog, customer/agent feedback and whether agents can find and reuse the answer. Assign work based on the actual gap: missing knowledge, outdated steps, poor discovery or an overdue review.

Avoid encouraging agents to create duplicate articles merely to increase a creation metric. A verified improvement to the canonical article may help more customers than a new record. Preserve the history so you can recognize the different contributions.

Explain apparent discrepancies

Question	Explanation and next check
Why does Author differ from Original Creator?	They measure different events. Check the earliest qualifying submission/published version and the original record creator.
Why did publishing an article not increase my Top authors count?	The report credits original record creation, not later publication. Check its creator and Created date.
Why is a known article absent?	Check title/Trash/retired/KCS-blacklist eligibility, authorized division scope, date range, team filter and Top results limit.
Why did a count change after retiring content?	Eligibility is applied to the report cohort. Retired articles are excluded; it is not an immutable historical count of every record ever created.
Why does a later reviewer get no separate credit here?	This report does not measure every contribution. Use article history and an agreed review process for that question.
Why do two managers see different totals?	Compare their permissions, divisions, team/date filters and Top results limits before interpreting a performance difference.

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