Replacing an old Knowledge base

[BadRobot]

I was thinking about setting up a wiki type web page for my work. We have a few different people that would be editing content, but many people accessing it.

Anyone have any input on creating/editing knowledge bases for internal work use? Does not have to be wiki related...

 

[nakedfrog]

Yeah, we use mediawiki for our internal documentation.

 

[BadRobot]

May I ask how many people access it? I was thinking of setting up twiki as a test run on my personal computer...

 

[bobross419]

We also use a wiki based knowledge base (I believe it is mediawiki as well). We have anywhere from 20-50 people utilizing the wiki at any given time. It did require a bit of work setting it up and the WYSIWYG editor can sometimes wreck havoc on formatted text - A lot of times there is a large amount of blank space added just by looking at the WYSIWYG page. I assisted in setting up a number of our documentation pages and we found that it was much smoother to actually go into the code view (pseudo HTML) to setup the screens. One thing that I would have liked to seen my company due when using a wiki based KB is utilize the Discussion section for users to submit update requests and post helpful hints for other employees

 

[BadRobot]

Do either of you know if you paid someone to come in and install it or if someone within the company did? If I am actually able to get this going it could be upwards of 100 people using this...

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: BadRobot
May I ask how many people access it? I was thinking of setting up twiki as a test run on my personal computer...

Just the programming group and manager, so five people. It runs on our Gentoo box, which is a P4 2.4GHz IIRC. One of the programmers set it up.

 

[BadRobot]

What about you bob, who set it up for you guys?

 

[TheEarthWillShake]

It's not hard at all to setup. If you want to use some LDAP login there could be issues. Making users get new logins and passwords creates a problems.

 

[BadRobot]

You mean making them remember their logins or actually setting up the logins?

 

[bobross419]

I believe our network admins installed it, the tech leads and admins set it up, and the tech leads and techs programmed the wiki pages. I'm just a tech so I don't know too much of the specifics of the installation itself.

We currently use 1 login for all of the techs (editting and discussion disabled , so they don't need to track people). Tech leads and techs with write privileges have their own individual logins.

 

[BadRobot]

Anyone edit a wiki (including wikipedia) that uses a tool that automatically converts word text and html into wiki format? for example, the "wikEd" tool?

Bob, are you satisfied with it as a tool you use on a regular basis?

 

[bobross419]

We didn't use any sort of converting tool - Our documentation needed to be cleaned up anyways.

I did assist with the coding of some of the pages and anyone with even a basic knowledge of HTML should be pretty comfortable creating content.

As far as utilizing this as a technician, I am pretty happy with it overall.

I am satisfied with the speed of going from one page to the next and I do like the overall layout that my company chose.

We support a number of secondary education institutions and have our Wiki setup as follows:

Each page is an individual school. Each section on the page encompasses a certain aspect of that school that we support (Password Resets, Desktop, Network, Distance Education, ect.). At the top of each page is a navigation bar with a link to each section.


There was a very minor learning curve going from the old KB to the Wiki based KB, but after just a few days the ease of use has definitely increased my productivity. Our old KB was called Robo or something - no clue if this is a marketed KB or something our admins cooked up themselves.

I've been using a Wiki based KB for about 6 months now and the only complaint I really have is that we don't fully utilize the Discussions tab to discuss possible changes that need to be made. Our tech leads have been very good about making updates we request through email and they are all in agreement that it is very easy to make updates to Wiki.

 

[bobross419]

So I spoke with the guy that setup the wiki for us.

At the time he setup MediaWiki he was transitioning from Tech Lead to Network Admin. He said that the installation process was very easy using an Apache server pointing to the localhost and keeping all of the files in the Group folder (Sorry if this doesn't make sense, I had 2 calls after talking to him and this is the gist of it). The way he described it indicated that the actual installation is very simple.

He said that the hardest part was deciding on the conceptual aspects and the general format of the kb - He said this took months. Apparently we are using quite a few modules that don't come standard with the basic MediaWiki installation which allowed us to setup our Wiki base quite a bit different from what you normally see when you go to Wikipedia.org.

I hope this helps

 

[BadRobot]

Currently i maintain our KB and i just edit plain text files since its just html. I'm not satisfied with it at all though...

I'd much rather have a wiki setup. We have about 5 people that should be making additions and edits but they hardly have time to learn basic html (even though its pretty easy).

Really the only thing I'm struggling with is whether or not it will be a good fit for what we do. We support a website that is used by thousands of customers, hand held devices, and other applications... But the wiki will be strictly for internal use...

I suppose I'm just worried about my team actually using it as intended which is a problem anytime you implement a new system I suppose...

 

[bobross419]

Sorry, not much I can help you with there. Prior to implementing the wiki we did run a few focus groups to figure out what technicians and tech leads liked about the old system and what we would like to see changed. I wasn't around for the discussions those focus groups resulted in, but it might be a start for you.