Hi everyone,
Not sure how many of you this falls under here in the Technical forum, but I have some questions in regards to KB’s and documentation.
How do you go about maintaining and creating documentation around your specific Tess business practices for your user base? We currently take advantage of the Tess Help System and webinars etc. but need a more robust way of communicating, creating, and maintaining our own internal standards.
By biggest question is, what software do you use for this?
Word documents just don’t seem to cut it and can get messy pretty fast once you start hyperlinking to other documents. I also find people are very unlikely to use them and are often confused by which doc they need and how to find it. I tried placing some stuff the (?) in the client which I thought was a genius move but didn't really help as much as I would have hoped.
I experimented with MediWiki a little while ago which was great, but a bit labor intensive and not that user friendly for the non-techy when trying to maintain articles (the idea being that departments maintain their own stuff for the most part once it’s up and running).
Then there is SpiceWorks, which we use for our IT Help Desk. It has a KB function but I don’t find the layout all that appealing.
I guess in a perfect world I want something that is laid out like a wiki, possibly has a collaboration space, and is as easy to use as a word doc in regards to creating content.
Tell me Tessiturians….does anyone know if this magical product exist? Am I asking for too much?
Tash
Natasha-
Since we are "affiliated" with the University of Michigan, and they moved to using Google Apps campus-wide last year, we starting using Google Docs/Drive for our documentation. I was really leery of it at first, but it has been working well - and very user friendly. Because it's organized from within UofM, we can require a UofM login to access them securely (which we do). Plus, it is easy to navigate from a user perspective, very collaborative, instantly updated, and any department/user can write up/edit any documentation (or setup specific editors). They merely send me the http link so I can put it into TR_HELP_DOCUMENT_CUSTOM for direct access and voila, its with all the other Tessitura help available anywhere, anytime. The only thing we lack from it is any kind of "menu" like what is available in the regular Tessitura help. But for now, it works just fine for us.
Thanks all, some interesting things to consider and some great advice.
I really like the idea of segmented parts. I had a look around the Altassion Confluence website and it looks brilliant. A bit overwhelming at first glance, but lots of potential to grow….I guess that’s why you’re considering it for your Intranet.
I also very much like the idea of a private group on the network (which I didn't realize you could do!). This seems a little simpler to implement in the short term as we currently have…well….nothing (centralized) to be frank. Levi - the madness you mentioned is creeping in…
I haven’t really used Google docs all that much other than replacements for word, excel etc. Is using Google drive for documentation/KB purposes much like the word doc situation except with user controls and collaboration? Users are at least familiar with this general format…so could be a smooth transition to something more sophisticated.
Thanks again for all your advice, this is very helpful.