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
Hi Tash,
Regarding the private group on the Network website, we can set that up for you if you like, but I need to let you know of a couple of caveats: the primary one is that we are not able to host your organization’s files for you, i.e. we can’t act as a file server for you. You’re welcome to use the wiki, blog and discussion functionality, and upload a few files to the group. Another thing to keep in mind is getting your users to sign up for email alerts so they will stay informed—it might take some encouragement and follow up to make sure they click that subscribe link.
If you are interested in discussing a group further, I recommend emailing me at webmaster@tessituranetwork.com and we can get the specifics organized—I’ll need to set it up for you.
That said, we also use Confluence at the Network, as well as a few other Atlassian tools, and have been very happy with them. As a non-profit ourselves, the pricing can’t be beat, and they are really well put together. The TLCC planning committee is using Confluence for their planning, and to my knowledge have been happy with it. Additionally, the Network’s Developer site is built on Confluence.
Best,
Todd
Tessitura Network Webmaster
webmaster@tessituranetwork.com
www.tessituranetwork.com
From: Tessitura Technical Forum [mailto:forums-technical@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Natasha Purkiss Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 10:14 AM To: Todd Lantry Subject: Re: [Tessitura Technical Forum] Documentation software/solutions - what are you doing?
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.
From: Beth Gilliland <bounce-bethgilliland6030@tessituranetwork.com> Sent: 3/4/2013 3:39:57 PM
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.
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Just to double dip on the subject...
When we launched Confluence, we also installed JIRA, Atlassian's Issue tracking system. This has been a huge, well needed asset, and you can easily make the 2 systems talk to each other.
In the past few weeks, we've also launched Bonfire - their browser addon for super fast issue creation (great for web teams). And we're still working on our integrating it with our Version Control...as we move to Git, but its all happening and its all connected.
You can write up your build notes in confluence, link it up to your issue tickets, which link to your code commits. Sweetness!
True thanks to Don, on the TNEW team, for suggesting it to me at TLCC last year.
James - That sounds like absolute bliss!!
Are all the add-ons also free with a non-profit license? Seems they have quite a few (diagramming, embedding Google docs, creating wireframes)…AND it synchs with AD - Is this how you set it up? Any downsides if so?
Todd – I might like to set up a private user group for a few other things so I’ll be in contact.
Many/most were offered for free and we're yet to pay for any. That's Jira, Confluence, Greenhopper, Bonfire, and Bamboo...i think.
Yes, we're tied in with AD, and its works great. We went with ready only and local groups - so jira admins can make local groups without bothering our AD manager and/or messing up our AD structure to make special groups for vendors etc...
Both Jira and Confluence run as java apps in Apache Tomcat. This is fine, but if you're in a windows world, it gets a little funny. We're in the process of re configuring the instances to run from publicly accessible URLs. Also, for our purposes, we decided to go with an external db. No problems, but its worth mentioning. our IT director frowned abit by the thought of data/documents being stored there, but it seems to be working just fine.
James
FYI - They have a community license you can apply for to get the free stuff. The link is:
http://www.atlassian.com/software/views/community-license-request
- Heather