Posted on 08/27/2009 2:07:17 PM PDT by RedCell
Greetings!
I just volunteered for a project at work to chair a team that will look at building a knowledge base for our internal use. We are a technical company that provides computers, software and services with resources that are based around the globe. Our documentation is scattered about with pockets of organization and a lot of head-knowledge. The charter will be to develop a tool that is easy to use (otherwise no one will use it, of course) that allows our resources to access the information via an index or query and provide links to where formal documentation may reside as well as provide for message board type activity where experiences with situations can be shared, support questions can be asked and answered, etc.
What I envision is something similar to Wikipedia. I understand that you can set up private Wiki's so that's one of probably a thousand options. What I don't want to do is go the route of a simple database (e.g. MS Access - been there, done that) as our needs, which still need to be properly scoped, are more complex than something like that can handle.
We are a small company and we don't have a large IT department (it's really 1 guy utilizing some support that is outsourced) so I don't have a large pool of internal resources to pull from for this project - even for advice. I tried to think of a good starting point and decided to post here given the wide range of talents possessed by my fellow FReepers.
If anyone has experience in implementing something similar, I sure would appreciate any input you may have.
Thanks in advance,
Redcell
I have used Agile as a DB for many projects it can track every detail and every thing that you will need to track.
I am sure there are better programs, but this one has always worked for me.
I’d go with a simple CMS running on a internal server.
I am in a similar situation to yours, so I will be interested to see what turns up on this thread.
A wiki (Hawaiian for “quick” [or was that Hawaiian for Kenyan?]) or a blog would do the trick nicely. Simple to update and maintain, the key is getting things properly tagged and making sure there is a good search engine. I was surprised at how versatile a blog could be, especially the Wordpress implementation. Publishing could be as simple as writing up the knowledge point in an email and sending it to a special address. Of course if you need an IT expert to make it happen, send me a FReepmail.
A Notes db works well for this type of repository and links easily to other libraries, web pages and can be embedded. Sharepoint would also work for you but I’m not as versed on its full capabilities.
Users can search for any text. The history of each page is kept, and any page can be restored to any previously saved state. It integrates with an issue-tracking system named JIRA quite well.
Here's the vendor's web site: http://www.atlassian.com/
BTW, I have no interest in Atlassian whatever, financial or otherwise.
If you can't afford Confluence, you might want to check out WikiSpaces.com for a low-cost wiki.
Good luck.
I have not used them or experimented with them (I am retired), but there are several document server type software, specifically for knowledge bases.
http://www.freewarefiles.com/SmarterTrack_program_50438.html
http://www.knowledgebasepublishing.com
Search ‘knowledgebase publishing’ and similar
We us the free wiki from wikipedia. It’s so easy a cave man can do it.
This is exactly the type of job that Lotus Notes was designed for. There is no combination of other products that will accomplish the task as easily as Notes and with the most security. Microsoft has been trying to build a Notes killer for 10 years and they still haven’t done it. I know, I’m trying build a replacement using all of the Microsoft tools and it’s going to take a much longer time, cost way more, and not do as much.
This is called a wiki isn’t it?
just asking
You don’t have to sell me one Notes. Been a Domino admin for 12 years.
Cheers!
All,
Thanks for your replies/feedback. I kick-off my initial research tomorrow and my cursory checks of some of these links look promising. Some of the “pay-to-play” solutions may turn out to be too expensive (we’re pretty cheap when it comes to stuff like this - shoe maker’s son and all that) but you never know. My boss is supposed to give me an idea of the budget in the next week or so.
I’ll also keep in mind that some of you consult with this stuff so depending on the budget, you never know.
Take care and have a great rest of the day.
Cheers!
- RedCell
LOL! Somehow I think some of my politically challenged colleagues may have an issue with that approach.
I do technical work and use Resource Dynamics HelpDesk every day. It’s okay but I don’t recommend tying it to ACT as a contact manager. Much of what I do is tied to sales generation and the lazy sales people expect us to populate ACT. It would work much better as its own standalone contact manager. It has excellent bug reporting, RMA tracking, and even billing cycle capabilities.
http://www.resource-dynamics.com/
In the past I used a straight Lotus Notes database, and it was pretty successful but it turns out that Lotus Notes can only address 8 Gigabytes worth of text (I know, that’s a lot of text, but we built up 10 GB worth of straight text in 3 years).
That's incorrect. I currently have databases over 60GB.
From the help file:
"The size limit is the maximum size that this database can occupy on disk. In this release of Lotus Notes, there is no size limit. For databases using the .NS4 file extension, or for databases hosted on Domino servers not yet upgraded to Release 5 or later, the size limit is 4GBs."
Obviously I built my knowledge base before release 5.
What would you consider to be the best approach? One thing to keep in mind is feature creep, especially with managers who want to microfiddle with every detail. The best way to close them out is to have canned software that can’t do real time monitoring of how many bathroom breaks the engineers take.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.