●    Think like a user when writing internal knowledge base articles. Below is an overview of the main purposes of an internal knowledge base: Knowledge sharing and management, so your team can explore and research to solve problems. ●       To keep files at a single location for marketing, sales, management, and support team. Internal knowledge base. In this article, we are going to share tips on how to structure your internal knowledge base with sample templates to help you start building a well organized knowledge base for your team. Which screenshot was different? It’s the single source of truth for branding, tone of voice, policies and updates. Structure of an Internal Knowledge Base Defining the structure and style of the content is a necessary step as standardizing can play a crucial role in your internal knowledge base’s success. Abby Covert is an information architect whose website is full of awesome IA resources. What do you want your internal knowledge base to be used for? Organize Your Help Center. Outline Your Technology Plan. We believe the best way to structure your internal knowledge base is to set the top folders according to your team structure (you can take out your organizational chart to use it as a reference). Understand Your Tool. With so much information you want to organize, how should you start? Sharing the most important articles is a win-win for the company, employee, and customer. i.e. An internal knowledge base is defined as a central repository for managing and distributing all company knowledge and information. If IA is new term for you—or, if you’re just accustomed to hearing it in other contexts—it’s definitely worth doing a little reading about. Let’s start at the beginning – your title. If you are setting up a single knowledge base that will be shared with multiple teams and clients, user rights need to be on your watch list. Learn how to create a useful internal knowledge base from Guru. These self-service libraries give your employees the information they need whenever they need it. As explained earlier, one of the very first steps is to choose the right internal knowledge base software solution. This article is for anyone who wants to develop a knowledge base for authenticated users to browse and search. And you can always keep improving your content when you identify situations where teammates used a certain keyword to search but didn’t find the information they want. Because it will not be public. Select which topics to include. See if old articles need to be updated based on the new information. Setting up an internal knowledge base is a huge task and requires time and effort. Review your internal knowledge base regularly. ... Planning the structure of your internal knowledge base. This is where internal knowledge bases come in handy. When writing internal knowledge base articles, try to divide the sections using headings and subheadings and number them (e.g. Once you are clear in your head about what you want from your internal knowledge base, it will set you in the right direction. If you want a place to start, I’d recommend flipping through her How to Make Sense of Any Mess talk (also available in book form). What are we talking about? It’s a place where you can document processes, such as how a project is briefed and assigned, meeting notes, design ideas and blue sky brainstorming sessions. Your Internal Knowledge Base Structure When it comes time to figuratively lay pen to paper, you can choose between any of the common knowledge base software , such as Document360. We believe the best way to structure your internal knowledge base is to set the top folders according to your team structure (you can take out your organizational chart to use it as a reference). Whoever is assigned to write the article should be instructed to go through the process step by step first as a user. ●       Which departments/areas can benefit from this knowledge base. ●       Do not use technical terms that may be difficult for average users to understand. And by numbering the headings, it’s much easier to direct teammates to a specific point in the article when answering teammates’ questions (e.g. ●   Select competent knowledge base software (like TCT) to make the whole process easy and efficient. Regularly observe and see if best practices are being followed or not. Now, all you have to do is to decide will all of the employees have the access to all sections of your k… These might include: The above is not an exhaustive list as different companies have different structures and levels of transparency. ●       Is there a communication gap between different teams? But this becomes a hectic exercise and wastes a lot of time searching for the right document and avoiding oversharing of information. A knowledge base is another word for an internal FAQ, which your team can use to build and refine its institutional knowledge, empowering everyone to access the … 14-day free trial. Start publishing when you have about 10 articles to go live. That’s about 1.5+ productive hours daily wasted. Give Guru a whirl. who can view and/or edit content inside those folders) much easier. Subscribe to our newsletter for industry trends and insight from our consulting team. How to structure an internal knowledge base An internal knowledge base should be structured in an intuitive manner. Ask yourself questions and define the answers. The most important decision you’ll make about … Knowledge bases content is an ever-evolving part of the company. Internal Knowledge bases are only useful if the content is useful. Fact: A research by McKinsey & Company suggests an average employee spends about 8 hours a week searching internal resources for relevant information. Why it won’t be public? First, make an outline of what you want to accomplish with the knowledge base and what you want to use it for. It takes some time to do before you can really start to see the progress, but the investment will allow you to build up your knowledge base with confidence. With structured headings, it’s much easier to scan through the articles (especially lots of internal knowledge management tools like Kipwise can automatically generate Tables of Contents based on headings). Here are a few things you should consider while searching for an internal knowledge base: A knowledge base is as good as its information, i.e., the data needs to be accurate and user friendly. ●       What features do you need at my company? Asana. Perhaps one of the most essential knowledge base software features is search. How to structure your internal knowledge base so teammates can find information that they need easily? The data in your knowledge base can come from anywhere. ●       Quick training for new employees to get started and be productive. A knowledge base is a self-serve online library of information about a product, service, department, or topic. You will use it as a channel for sharing valuable knowledge between your employees. Some like to follow the written word and screenshots; some like to watch the video. Different users like to learn using their medium of choice. Carefully Consider What Information You’ll Include. Here's the basic process of building a knowledge base: Decide on the core elements of your knowledge base. ●       Help employees do their jobs efficiently. We’ve been using ProProfs Knowledge Base software for quite some time now, and I would say it is the best software to create an internal company knowledge base. Knowledge content can range from short articles to multi-page documents to rich media galleries. A thought-out title is essential because it’s how customers will actually find the answers to their problems.The fact of the matter is this:If your customers don’t know the knowledge base article can solve their problem, it doesn’t matter one lick how good the rest of the article is!So make your title count. Following these steps will help you create a knowledge base that is useful and accurate at the same time. Not only does it make the navigation easy to follow, it also makes setting permissions (i.e. ... Now you can stop toiling over the structure of your wiki, get back to your job, and watch a meaningful knowledge base emerge before your eyes. An information architecture project entails a lot of thinking, planning, and decision-making about how your help center is put together. Every step you’ve taken has led you to this point. This will help them find the pain points of the whole process. The same can be said of … Now, you are at a point where you know what you want to create and who's … ●       Write articles and get them approved. Pro tip:  Establish a project calendar to avoid diving deep into the void of non-completion of the knowledge base. ●    Stop wastage of time, as company employees can simply search for the required information on a single platform, on a single medium. As different reasons can change your direction of how you want to progress. Categories should lead the user to the content they are searching and clearly indicate what’s inside. ●       How are you sharing the required information with the customer? Yes or No button, ●       A feedback system at the bottom, say a contact form, asking to send in the question if it is still not answered. They’re also sometimes known as wikis – you can think of them as a Wikipedia just for your company. The truth is, building a knowledge base doesn’t ensure it will actually be successful (or even useful for that matter). But we hope the above sample structure helps you better plan how to structure your internal knowledge base. Sometimes employees have to go through an entire 2 hours recorded meeting to get the 2 minutes of the required information. If you add these numbers and apply them to all of your employees, this becomes a huge financial burden. add “A, B, C…” in front of Headings 1 and “1, 2, 3..” in front of Headings 2. Here are a few points you should ask your article writer to keep in mind while creating a guide/ article. Which step took the longest? Typically, internal knowledge bases are used for: ●       New product or new process information for the company employees. Just like the foundations of your office building, your knowledge base is fundamental to serving your customers. Looking to take your app and customer service to the next level? An internal knowledge base improves your team’s customer service efficiency. Asana is project management software that helps teams collaborate better. ●    Centralize all the information on one location for the team. A high-quality internal knowledge base – made up of knowledge base articles that consistently adhere to the highest standards – goes a long way to maximize employee effectiveness, reduce the duplication of work, and increase productivity across the organization. It's completely free to start. ●       Explain in simple words that even an 8th grader can understand. ●       How are you training your recruits? Not only will it help streamline your internal working, but knowledge base articles can also be shared with the help center and a customer if needed. Define review processes. No credit card required. Ensure all information follows the same pattern as it can help employees find the right information quickly and easily. These can be analyzed, then incorporated into the article. It also allows you to set custom user rights how you want them to be. An internal knowledge base is a content repository for your company. We understand – this can be an overwhelming process. ●   Analyze what needs to be done before starting the work on the internal knowledge base. Pro tip:  We recommend creating a few generic categories and then define as many subcategories as you want to, link those subcategories with the main ones. For example, for marketing, you can further divide the top level folders into. But to get the benefits of an internal knowledge base, you have to do it right. But how to write a most helpful article? Experts tend to ignore a few steps as they have a higher knowledge of the product. Companies often use documents, pdfs, emails, recorded videos, and word documents to save the required information to be shared with the employees when needed. Try to write for an average employee, i.e., neither for beginners nor for expert users. Write the knowledge base articles. Implementing an internal knowledge base is important, but using the right knowledge base platform is critical to success. By now, you have … you can check out point A2 of this documentation). This can be avoided using an internal knowledge base. Why not choose The Cloud Tutorial? To help teammates find the information that they need more easily, other than using naming convention to name your articles, it’s also a good idea to include varieties of keywords that you believe your teammates will use to search for the item. Avoid jargon. Whether your agent is supporting a customer in real-time by phone or responding to a support ticket, the knowledge an internal KB allows your agents to give customers exactly what they want — a quick resolution to their problem. Typically, contributors who are well versed in the relevant subjects add to and expand the knowledge base. Why do we call it internal? Build an advanced knowledge base for your customers and give them answers fast – real fast. Developing a high-quality organizational plan for your internal knowledge base is just like building the foundation of a building. Generally, we recommend companies to start with these top level folders: Then within each top level folders, you can further divide the content by the different functions of that functional team. Go … Set up the categories that will be the top level units of your knowledge base and represent the logical subdivision of the entire KB content. ●    Lower onboarding cost and training of a customer, as they can be referred to knowledgebase articles. Recommended Reading. It’s one of the … ●       Who writes the current information? Start with the most important information first. An organized internal knowledge base can not only help you and your employees find answers quickly, but it also benefits businesses to save a lot of money. 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