A handbook, not a folder of documents.
Articles nest into the sections your business actually has. Anyone can write, the people who own a subject decide what lands, and finding something takes a search rather than asking whoever has been here longest.
The thing only Priya knows becomes an article in four minutes, and the next person who needs it does not have to find Priya.
Writing
Four things that decide whether anybody uses it.
A wiki fails on habit, not on features. These are the four places that habit is won or lost.
Write it the way you would write it anywhere.
A plain editor with headings, lists, tables, images and code. No syntax to learn and no template to fill in, because an article somebody had to fight to write is an article that does not get written.
In an article
- Formatting that survivesHeadings, lists and tables, not a wall of text
- Images and filesA screenshot beats three paragraphs
- Links between articlesSo one answer can point at the next
Sections that match how your business is organised.
Articles sit inside sections you name, so somebody looking for the leave policy looks under People rather than guessing which folder it landed in. Move an article and the links to it keep working.
Structure
- Your own sectionsNamed after the parts of your business
- Nested where it helpsAnd flat where nesting would not
- Moving is safeLinks keep working after a reorganisation
Search that understands the question.
The same search that answers your customers answers your team.Matched by meaning rather than by keyword, so somebody who does not know the official name for a thing still finds it.
Finding an article
- By meaningNot by remembering the title
- From anywhereThe same keystroke as everything else here
- Beside the workResults sit next to the deals and files, not in a separate tool
Open to write, owned per subject.
Anybody can start an article, because the alternative is that nobody does. The people who own a subject decide what stays, so openness does not become a mess.
Who does what
- Anyone writesA draft from the person who knows beats a gap
- An owner approvesPer section, so nothing goes stale unowned
- Everything is versionedYou can see what changed and put it back
It is in the tool people already have open.
A wiki in a separate product gets read in the first week and never again. This one is beside the deals, the tickets and the chat, so looking something up is not a decision to go somewhere else.
Where it shows up
- In searchAlongside records and files
- In chatWhen somebody asks a question your team has answered before
- In the chat on your websiteAnswering the same question for a customer