Guide To Internal Knowledge Base Software will be described in this article. The definition of internal knowledge base software, its applications, its advantages, and advice on selecting the best one for your company will all be covered in this book. We’ll also include a tonne of links to additional resources.
Guide To Internal Knowledge Base Software In 2024
In this article, you can know about Guide To Internal Knowledge Base Software here are the details below;
Introduction
According to McKinsey study, the typical office worker devotes over 20% of their working hours on looking up internal information.
Although there are many ways to interpret this figure, to put it in perspective, imagine that your staff only shows in four days a week. Alternatively, you may hire five people but only have four available because the fifth one is always looking for work.
The truth is that we still have to spend a lot of time in our professional lives searching internally for knowledge due to a variety of factors.
Making information more accessible to your staff through an internal knowledge base has several advantages, one of which is a reduction in the amount of time spent on research. It’s important to remember that knowledge bases are not a novel idea. Nevertheless, business owners are beginning to use the potential of these centralized data repositories to raise overall productivity levels inside their organizations.
Everything you need to know about internal knowledge bases will be covered in this post. We’ll explain what they are, why they’re useful, and offer advice on how to build up a centralized information repository for your company.
The Power of Centralized Information
Prior to exploring the realm of internal-facing knowledge bases, it is crucial to emphasise the significance of information. Allowing quick access to internal information, for example through a central library structure, can greatly benefit any business.
The average worker can spend nearly nine hours a week just looking for information, which costs your business a lot of money. It might have an effect on other performance areas in addition to the fact that they are not making money during these hours.
Increased hold times are frequently the outcome of longer search times. The fact that nearly 60% of customers will only tolerate being put on wait for five minutes or fewer before hanging up emphasizes how crucial it is to provide your staff with easy access to information.
It can also be very costly to not give your team the resources they need. Big businesses lose around $10 billion annually as a result of employees spending too much time looking for information or producing resources that are already there but difficult to locate.
When it comes to financial assets, startups and medium-sized businesses may suffer a smaller loss, but their ventures lack depth.
Internal knowledge bases can make a significant difference in this situation. Accessible resource databases can cut down on research time by up to 35%, which can enhance a number of aspects of your business.
A user-friendly knowledge base programme that makes it simple to upload content and incorporate it into any kind of application. Try out Document360!
What is an Internal Knowledge Base
A consolidated database of corporate resources, known as an internal knowledge base, is the first port of call for the majority of employee questions, if not all of them.
These materials can be found in a variety of formats, but their goal is to assist in addressing any queries your team members might have. This can include details about the company’s beliefs, goals, specifications, internal rules, formal procedures, new hardware or product upgrades, release schedules, promotions, troubleshooting, technical specs, SOPs, onboarding manuals, and much more.
Typically, internal databases fall into one of two categories:
- Human-Readable Internal Knowledge Bases: As the name suggests, these databases are available in human-readable formats. Machine-Readable Knowledge Bases: These knowledge bases are made for programmes and bots. They can leverage AI & machine learning to varying degrees. They are frequently employed for internal and external-facing purposes. These automated users retrieve instructions and other information from machine-readable knowledge bases just like human users do.
- Among the topics covered in this article on human-readable internal knowledge bases are typical applications for these systems.
What Are Internal Knowledge Bases Used for?
The scale and intricacy of internal knowledge bases might differ. In essence, some are sizable encyclopaedias. Others are complex systems for solving problems that make use of cutting-edge developments like artificial intelligence.
Depending on the needs of your company, these platforms’ flexibility allows them to be utilised for a variety of jobs. Here are a few indicators that your business could gain from having an internal knowledge base:
Experiencing high hold times & low customer service satisfaction scores; low collaboration rates; receiving a high volume of internal inquiries for departments such as legal, financial, and HR; working in a highly technical industry; your team spending a lot of time researching information or seeking assistance from peers; releasing products or updates that your team hasn’t mastered; receiving frequent requests for new materials or additional training from your employees; observing that different approaches are taken to address the same issue; a small group of employees who hold the majority of the knowledge; email remains the multiple common way your team shares inner information; encountering the same queries repeatedly
While all knowledge bases serve as informational resources, these internal archives might serve many functions at once. Here are some typical applications of internal knowledge bases that you may find in use today.
Legal Questions and Human Resources Inquiries
Encouraging your staff to self-address frequently asked concerns or provide guidance on application filing can free up a lot of repetitive labour for your HR, finance, and legal departments.
Troubleshooting Instructions
One of the most common questions from customers in technical and SaaS organisations is troubleshooting. Simple access to troubleshooting guides can help you provide faster, higher-quality service, which will boost client satisfaction.
Step-by-Step Guides and FAQs
The majority of end users lack tech knowledge. Providing comprehensive how-to manuals, frequently asked questions, and even explanations of vocabulary will assist your users navigate the various functions your product offers.
Information About New Products, Upcoming Launches, and Promotions
Buzz is often generated by imminent releases, promotions, and new items. Your team can benefit from having access to all of these facts at any time by using a knowledge base. Additionally, since every member of your team, regardless of shift or department, will be operating from the same sheet of information, you can guarantee that your clients receive consistent information each time they call in.
Summaries of Training Materials
It’s possible that not every employee had a positive experience with the new product training process or onboarding. You may help them hone their abilities and develop their potential to become excellent in their work by providing them with more resources.
A Creative Hub
As a creative hub, your marketing, sales, management, and design teams can establish an internal knowledge base to assist with resource organisation, idea generation, and project development.
Onboarding Materials
A strong internal knowledge base might be advantageous to new hires. By consulting your knowledge resource for onboarding materials, they can become up to speed more quickly rather than wasting time asking management questions about how they perform their jobs.
Standard Operating Procedures
All organisations have procedures that must be written down. Employees can refer to Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) from your internal knowledge base as a primary source of guidance on how to perform their duties.
A user-friendly knowledge base programme that makes it simple to upload content and incorporate it into any kind of application. Try out Document360!
The Benefits of Internal Knowledge Base
The primary advantage of establishing an internal knowledge base is that it provides your team with new, shiny tools.
Technical details, coupon codes, and even links to self-serve internal forms that may be filled out are just a few examples of the resources that can be kept in an internal knowledge base.
Put another way, there could be a number of benefits to providing your staff with access to a knowledge base. Among them are:
Improve Internal Communications
Collaborations will be possible through effective knowledge bases in a variety of ways. They may permit discussion boards, chat rooms, comments, forums, and other means of communication.
In addition to promoting open communication among team members, numerous commercial knowledge bases can be easily connected with other platforms to facilitate cooperation. Additionally, the top platform will ensure that your staff never misses a beat by sending notifications through their preferred communication channel.
Increase Productivity
Having information easily accessible typically leads to a workforce with more knowledge and faster service. These two components have an impact on how your company runs on the inside as well as the outside. Implementing an internal knowledge base can thereby increase production in a variety of industries.
In addition, having a quick team that always seems to have answers on hand will establish you as an industry expert!
Deliver Superior Customer Service
Any business’s ability to succeed depends on its ability to uphold high standards of customer service. It will not only keep your clientele coming back for more, but it will also improve the reputation of your business.
Many business owners also fail to notice that happy consumers are more likely to recommend you to others and spend more money on your goods.
In a 2017 survey, 15% of UK respondents said they would be willing to pay more for a business that provides excellent customer service because larger profit margins are a result.
Higher Retention Rates
Making a business successful is the key to keeping it afloat. Most business owners and marketers would quickly recommend an aggressive marketing strategy when you consider boosting revenue. or even several sales techniques.
In the end, it can be far more beneficial to retain your current clientele than to convert new leads. According to some estimations, acquiring new clients is five times better expensive than retaining current ones.
Because an internal knowledge base may provide your staff with the information they need to satisfy clients, it can be an excellent retention strategy. In addition to walkthroughs and technical information, a knowledge base may include other retention tools, such as coupon codes or strong rebuttals.
Smoother On-boarding and Internal Transitions
Enough onboarding training is essential to your business’s success. It’s imperative to swiftly onboard new team members so they can begin working on revenue-generating projects. Similarly, staff members training for new products or ready to take on new duties require appropriate coaching to succeed in their new positions.
Giving your team the security of an internal knowledge base can help you create an environment that learns quickly. Your group will have instant access to all past training materials as their first point of contact, in case they need to revisit a previous lesson.
Certain knowledge bases even enable your staff to enrol in internal training programmes that support a seamless transition and chances for upskilling even after they join the manufacturing line.
How to Set up an Internal Knowledge Base?
Yes, exactly! It’s time to go a little further now that we’ve covered the fundamentals of internal-facing knowledge bases.
Although it may seem simple at first, creating a central repository for materials can be a difficult procedure. You have to sort through hundreds of bits and take into account dozens of sources.
Additionally, you must consider areas for improvement and components that could assist your business before you even begin to compile content.
Since every firm is different, what constitutes an ideal knowledge base will vary depending on what yours needs. Nevertheless, trustworthy internal information databases frequently have comparable characteristics. Here are some pointers for developing a fantastic internal knowledge base for your company.
Evaluate Your Current Performance
In addition to assisting with feature selection, assessing your existing performance will confirm that an internal knowledge base is necessary. You’ll be able to pinpoint areas that need work, which will help you advance your knowledge base.
You should do a detailed analysis of every process used by your business. An internal knowledge base may help you in every aspect of your organization, from order processing to recruitment.
Internal knowledge bases are continual undertakings rather than one-time projects. Create a model where your database is updated on a regular basis, ideally by a reliable team that will establish and adhere to the required standards.
Your committed staff will be in charge of researching relevant topics, creating articles, organizing the creation of new information, and maintaining your knowledge base. This covers customer and employee surveys in addition to any other original techniques you see appropriate.
Set up an Internal Knowledge Base Tream
For your internal knowledge base to be successful, standardization is essential. Providing content in a variety of formats will discourage your staff from frequently visiting your database. This is mostly due to the fact that each time users open a new post, they have to scour the entire page for information.
Organizing your papers in a consistent, methodical way will make the work at hand easier. Their natural sense of where to look will be prompted by a straightforward design that makes effective use of white space.
Your content development team will also need less work because they can produce a wide range of customizable templates that may be saved in the knowledge base itself.
Determine the Style and Content Guidelines
This moment will differ greatly based on your organization’s age and size. A limited quantity of information is typically available to small firms that have just made their first sale, which streamlines the process.
Several product-offering, stable small and medium-sized businesses typically have a lot more internal data. In these situations, you can look at the most often asked questions or subjects of internal discussions and go from there.
In addition, you can carry out original research by surveying people or looking at the most often used keywords in the firm email address. This can help you create an order for the creation funnel and provide insights into the initial themes you wish to develop.
Decide what information will be Prioritised
Although internal knowledge bases are an integral aspect of a larger company structure, they shouldn’t be assembled haphazardly or combined with another platform.
One may easily see the limitations of internal repositories bundled with other platforms, such as their lack of analytics features or poor search engine. An untrustworthy information base frequently leads to a subpar user experience, meaning that your employees will never reach their maximum potential.
An internal knowledge base ought to function as a stand-alone instrument for information retrieval, organisation, and optimisation.
Find a Reliable internal Knowledge Base Provider
Having stated that, this software is essential to the entire knowledge management ecosystem of your business. Look for a supplier who can accommodate your other needs while enabling simple connectivity with your other business tools.
A user-friendly knowledge base programme that makes it simple to upload content and incorporate it into any kind of application. Try out Document360!
Define a Flexible Base Structure
You need to describe the structure of the knowledge base itself in addition to creating a set of criteria for the content. This is critical, particularly because it can boost your knowledge base search engine’s effectiveness.
Keep in mind that you will be regularly changing your content, therefore you should also look for a flexible platform that makes restructuring simple.
Try employing subsections to help you narrow the broad categories in your centralised information store. For example, you may start with a general category like Technical Support and then focus on individual categories like Ticketing, Troubleshooting, and Escalating.
Establish a Project Calendar
Finally, begin organizing the production and delivery of content. The simplest approach to accomplish this is to schedule your internal knowledge base and handle it as if it were a separate project.
Establish the launch date in advance, delegate tasks to team members, and work with them to decide how frequently updates will occur. Additionally, make the appropriate arrangements, such as letting the other staff members know about the ongoing job and provide sufficient training.
Top Internal Knowledge Base Software
To ensure the successful implementation of your internal knowledge base, you must select the appropriate software that meets your needs. We’ve put together a list of the best tools you should think about using to get your internal knowledge base started straight away.
1.Document 360
To start with, we heartily endorse Document360. All the capabilities required to establish an effective internal knowledge base are provided by Document360. This platform is well-known for its extremely user-friendly editor, which enables you to produce material in both WYSIWYG and Markdown formats.
The potential for your company to establish a private knowledge base that is only available with a login is advantageous to Document360. Document360 provides enterprise-grade security for larger enterprises, safeguarding your documents from intrusions and keeping them safe. An audit record that offers a thorough description of team activity in the knowledge base will be available for you to follow.
Do you need to provide your consumers from many knowledge bases? With Document360, managing numerous knowledge bases from a single account is simple. Upgrade your plan to gain access to more knowledge bases. Advanced analytics assist you in staying informed about prospective updates and show you how users are interacting with your material.
2. Zendesk
Popular help desk software Zendesk also includes Guide, a feature-rich knowledge base add-on. One benefit of Guide is its integration with the Zendesk ticketing system, which makes it simple for you to locate or publish articles while providing customer service.
Zendesk makes it easy to control permissions for your articles by allowing you to restrict material to specific groups. Articles automatically save as you type, preventing ever-important data loss. Zendesk Guide maintains track of all the modifications made to your knowledge base, allowing you to always be aware of the most recent releases.
Serving a worldwide team is simple because you can translate your pieces into more than 40 languages. The primary disadvantage of Guide is that it needs to be integrated with your Zendesk ticketing system, which means that if you currently have a satisfied help desk, this could end up being a very costly solution.
3. Notion
With Notion, you can consolidate your internal knowledge onto a single interactive platform, making it more akin to a wiki. Documents pertaining to various departments can be easily found by grouping your work into Teamspaces. One of Notion’s advantages is that it offers functionality like task creation and labelling that are typically provided by several distinct collaborative platforms.
Notion is well-liked due to its user-friendly interface and ease of usage. Notion organises information in a variety of formats, making content creation simple and painless in place of cumbersome, antiquated technologies.
Numerous templates are included with Notion to assist you in creating eye-catching documents to showcase your work. Notion’s drawback is that it functions more as a team collaboration tool than a straightforward knowledge base programme, which means you can wind up paying for items you don’t require.
4. Confluence
Confluence is a well-known wiki software that lets you make areas that are filled with content exclusive to each team. Confluence has a library of templates that let you build visually appealing and educational papers, and it was created with remote workers in mind. Because documents are arranged as pages, finding the information you need is simple to do.
Confluence is primarily designed for teams that need a place to store their knowledge and want to work more efficiently. Confluence has numerous robust connectors with the apps you use on a daily basis, such as Trello and Google Docs. Confluence is a fantastic choice for smaller teams because it is free for up to ten users, which is another fantastic feature.
You will always be able to manage your knowledge since you can follow the history of each version of a page. Your personal information is secure since you can control who is allowed access to each area and page. Confluence provides a feature-rich enterprise wiki along with collaboration tools to turn your knowledge into action.
5. Help Scout
Another help desk ticketing system with integrated internal knowledge base software is called Help Scout. Smaller firms who wish to use their software to organise their expertise and assist clients are the target audience for Help Scout in particular. It has all the capabilities you would anticipate, including the capacity to write content, optimise for search engines, and provide relevant content for your website or application.
Help Scout’s knowledge base software is largely designed for teams that interact with customers, so you might be paying for features like the widget’s support contact form that you don’t require. It won’t go as well to create and share internal information with a tool that wasn’t made for the job.
Help Scout has the advantage of allowing you to swiftly develop new articles when you identify a knowledge gap. The Beacon assistance widget can then be used to surface pertinent articles, allowing users to search for information without ever leaving the app.
6. Nuclino
You can manage projects and organise your knowledge in one location with Nuclino. It is designed for internal teams who wish to increase productivity and guarantee that data is never lost. For individuals who would prefer to work with a single productivity tool rather than a variety of apps, Nuclino places a strong emphasis on networking. Teams may get started right away because it is easy to use and intuitive.
With Nuclino, you may produce visually appealing material and even write in Markdown, which can greatly expedite the preparation of some documents. You can take advantage of real-time collaboration with Nuclino, which ensures that no modifications you make are erased when someone else works on the same document. You can alter how your workflow is displayed to teams interested in using Nuclino for project management so they can handle their duties however they see fit.
The ability to immediately store and sync changes across all devices makes remote working more productive. To make sure that all of your work is connected, Nuclino makes it simple for you to link to various pages within your material. Additionally, Nuclino connects with Teams and Slack, enabling knowledge creation from any location.
7. MediaWiki
In contrast to the other technologies in this list, MediaWiki is an open-source wiki software that enables you to build a user knowledge base. Since MediaWiki is the engine behind Wikipedia and many other well-known wikis, it’s likely that you’ve used it. One benefit of MediaWiki is that it can be accessed by a expansive range of people, many of whom are eager to contribute content to your company.
With MediaWiki’s extensibility and customisation features, you can tailor it to your own requirements in addition to its free nature. You can prevent unauthorised users from accessing the wiki if it is hosted on your own internal servers, but you are unable to block access at the page level. You will be responsible for your own upkeep, hosting, and upgrades because MediaWiki is free, thus there are a lot of unstated expenses related to open source software.
Because MediaWiki was created to support heavily trafficked websites, it also requires a large amount of disc space, therefore it might not be the best choice if memory is an issue.
What You Need to look for in an Internal Knowledge Base Provider
Though not all knowledge base solutions are offered by standalone platforms, there are plenty that do. Spend some time investigating the various suppliers until you identify one that satisfies your needs for both capacity and price.
When selecting a supplier, some factors to think about are as follows:
The ability to Collaborate and Interact
As we have repeatedly stated, fostering cooperation is an essential component of any strong knowledge base.
A Powerful Search Engine
There are moments when your staff members lack the time to peruse your knowledge base. Look for a platform that supports keyword and filter-based searches.
Tags, Keywords and other labeling Methods
Enabling tags, keywords, and further labelling techniques is an excellent approach to simplify structure and searching.
Multimedia and Multi-Format Libraries
Forms and films to simple words are just a few examples of the company resources available. For a comprehensive experience, confirm that the internal knowledge base provider you use permits you to access various media formats.
Versioning, Rollback and Other Editing Features
The ability to make and preserve several versions of a piece of content will assist develop better content because some pieces of content might need to be curated. A fantastic knowledge base will also highlight updates you make to each version so you can examine them side by side.
Inadvertently altering a file at the incorrect moment can also be a part of updating a company’s knowledge base. Additionally, in order to prevent content loss permanently, your internal database should offer other editing options and rollback capabilities that enable you to recover earlier versions.
A Flexible and Intuitive Structure
It’s a common misconception that all office workers are computer literate. In order to enable your knowledge base team to make changes as soon as they receive input, make sure the platform you select is user-friendly and simple to edit.
Tips for Optimising Your Internal Knowledge Base
Maintaining the information current and fresh can be achieved by optimising your own knowledge base. Your staff will also regard it as a trustworthy source if you update it regularly.
We’ve put up some brief advice on how to maximise your internal knowledge base following its initial launch below.
Perfect the User Experience
To uncover ways to improve the user experience, combine digital statistics with employee surveys.
Deploy a More Efficient Search Engine
Because search engine technology is always changing, ensure sure your internal knowledge store is powered by a powerful browser.
Rewrite or Optimise Old Content
The drill and SEO optimisation are comparable. Consider revising or developing new content if you come across tags or keywords that receive a lot of searches but the items that are currently up don’t seem to be fulfilling the demand.
Make All Types of Resources Accessible Through your Knowledge Base
Internal knowledge bases foster an atmosphere of openness and information sharing. This can be used to your advantage by using it as a route for the distribution of announcements and resources of all kinds.
Collect Feedback from Employees and Your Clients
Continually gathering input from your staff and clients will help you identify fresh areas for improvement. This exercise can assist in creating new subjects and identifying areas that could use development in the future.
You may combine knowledge base software, such as Document360, with other programmes, such as Microsoft Teams and Slack. Your staff may create documentation using Slack right from the workplace and in markdown for any knowledge base version. You can effortlessly search for & share articles in Teams right from the Teams interface.
Choosing the Best Internal Knowledge Base
Knowledge base capacities are offered by numerous firms. A lot of these come packaged with marquee products, such as the knowledge base offered by Zendesk. However, in terms of overall quality and user experience, going with a stand-alone internal knowledge base usually yields the greatest outcomes.
Bundled knowledge bases may not always have these issues, but they often have basic defects or restrictions resulting from inappropriate designs.
Conversely, standalone internal knowledge bases have a number of specialist uses. Their developers thus concentrate on refining the capabilities and features that aid in resolving these problems.
A Comparison of Paid and Free Internal Knowledge Bases
Financial restraints are nothing new to startups and small businesses, which may lead them to prefer free internal information bases.
Free knowledge base technologies typically have some limitations in comparison to their expensive versions, just like the majority of other corporate software. A limited feature set or a limit on the number of people who can access the database are two examples of this.
Some providers use internal knowledge bases as a lead generation tactic to entice businesses to sign up for their flagship product, which is typically a customer relationship management (CRM) or customer support tool.
Selecting a paid knowledge base will grant you entry to more features and advantages. However, that doesn’t imply there aren’t any good free options available. Having said that, you’ll need to take the time to look for and read reviews of the top free internal knowledge bases on the internet!
Should You Use a Wiki Page as a Knowledge Base?
Users can collaborate on wiki pages and wiki databases by adding and editing content as they see suitable. Wiki pages have fundamental problems that prevent them from being the greatest option for a company’ information base, even though they make excellent public collaborative encyclopaedias.
When using a Wiki page as a company’s information base, security is a big worry. While Wikis are available to users outside of the company, knowledge bases are designed to be exhaustive. Wiki knowledge bases frequently lack details or run the danger of disclosing confidential company information to rival businesses and clients.
A hierarchy of chosen users with the authority to alter and update the resources can be established and enforced using internal knowledge bases. While collaboration is important, not every user in an internal knowledge base should have the ability to make changes to a document’s underlying content.
Furthermore, by tracking statistics through internal central repositories, you may determine what content needs to be created, which staff members should be added to the knowledge base team, & what user interface updates can be made, among other enhancements.
Get the Best Internal Knowledge Base for Your Company
It can take some time to find a trustworthy knowledge base, but the rewards can be enormous for your business. Always look for the qualities that will benefit your business the most when choosing a provider to fulfil your present and future needs.
A strong, independent information base is provided by Document360, which is ideal for businesses of all kinds. Although we built our platform with customer-facing repositories in mind, we also took the time to add features that make it an excellent option for internal databases.
Our development team is always striving to improve the features we offer, which currently include, to mention a few, rich-media support, versioning, user hierarchy, and rollback capabilities.
To give you the greatest internal database possible, we work hard to build a platform that is easy to use, collaborative, and supported by a strong search engine. Get in contact with us right now if you’d like more information about our platform; our staff will be happy to assist you.