Discussion on:

Build a knowledge base that streamlines your support operations

Have you worked for organizations that didn't have any system for recording and sharing the details of common problems? What suggestions can you add to this list of knowledge base pointers?

our company is in the midst of creating a database can anyone help us with the structure and software related to creating a successful knowledge base

There are many dedicated applications for knowledge base applications, but many companies use things like Access or Lotus notes. make sure that you make a big wish list, spend a bit of time brainstorming the requirements and go to a vendor with your plan in hand.

Also make sure that you have strong procedures in place for the posting and editing of articles

we installed TWiki (www.twiki.org) a couple of years ago as a way to organize our collective information for implementation and support.

it has proven to be the most critical decision we made on the project - anybody can author articles, completely searchable, linkable within twiki as well as to external information, etc.

we started small and have just continued adding more information as time goes on. we've grown several FAQs, as well as best practices, installation and operating procedures, vendor documentation, etc.

it's free to try, and you'll quickly see the benefits of having a "collective" mind!

Try www.serviceinnovation.org for access to white papers and best practices guidelines. Best of luck, Matt

if you have a solution, or part of one, that fits more than one problem/symptom, find a KB solution that allows you to cross-link your solutions and categorize. tis allows for faster update times when the knowledge changes, and also facilitates you to empower "specialists" in each content category to have higher quality solutions.

One combined solution:

PocketThinker outliner for Outlook.
Use PocketThinker outline to describe problem in outline form - PocketPC, DeskTop compatible.
Editor annotates the outline, defines "active words and phrases", stores outline in Oracle Text using GeniusConnect, adds to Oracle Text thesaurus, connects PocketThinker outlines to ActiveWords where applicable, orchestrates customer feedback into Oracle Text.
Then have outlined solutions with three ways of retrieving:
1) via Oracle Text
2) via ActiveWords
3) via PocketThinker
Outlining = analysis of the problem
Editor helps in compiling syntheses of the problem
Help-Desk employees encouraged to generate new ActiveWords and new analyses in outline form. Could also be encouraged to systematically contribute to the thesaurus in Oracle Text.

ActiveWords = www.activewords.com
PocketThinker (outliner for Outlook) = www.pocketthinker.com
GeniusConnect (Outlook to Oracle link useful for above and for storing customer e-mail feedback) = www.geniusconnect.com

I think twiki is one of the way where we can store valuable information. It generally keep tracks of everything like name, date, version etc. We have been doing this for the last 2 year and it proved very helpful.