Overview
In today’s connected world people expect and require easy access to proper information. That’s why a reliable knowledge base is the cornerstone of any knowledge management strategy. It improves customer service and provides better self-servicing documentation, giving customers easy access to instant answers 24/7. Likewise it’s a great work related tool for employees on an intranet.
Multiple Knowledge Base
When your company has multiple products or services; keeping all documentation in the same knowledge base makes it more difficult for users to find the right information. In particular when someone is looking for a specific product and runs a search, the results will be mixed and diluted with matching articles from other products. As a result it reduces their chances to quickly find the information they’re looking for. So in this case it would be a good idea to create a multiple KB to keep your products or services separated.
For example, imagine you have a website for holiday rentals. Here it’s good idea to keep the docs for homeowners and clients separate. You don’t want clients to see the documents that’s relevant to homeowners and vice versa. So in this case creating a multiple KB is the perfect solution.
Similarly you could create an external, customer facing KB, where customers can go to learn everything they need to know about a company’s products, services and organization. As well as an internal KB for employees to collaborate and distribute all company information and documentation.
BasePress allows you to build as many independent knowledge bases as you need to document your products or services out of the box.
Single vs Multiple Knowledge Base
BasePress operates both as a Single or Multiple knowledge base; apart from the points explained before, the two modes differ slightly in the way you access the content.
When used as a Single KB the entry page of the KB will display a list with the top sections and articles in your KB. The permalinks and breadcrumbs don’t include the knowledge base name. This standard KB is a good idea when you have a single product or service, you want to create documentation for.
Here you can see an example of a Single Knowledge Base.
Instead when you use BasePress as a Multiple KB, the entry page will display a list of the knowledge bases where users can choose the product or service that interest them. Every KB can have a picture and a description as an introduction to the documentation.
Once the user selects the KB, he sees the list of sections and articles for that specific KB.
The permalinks and the breadcrumbs include the knowledge base name. Furthermore all widget content, tags, searches and suggested articles are specifically related to the KB the user is currently in. Consequently users receive targeted results and only see the product or service they’re looking for.
Here you can see an example of Multiple Knowledge Bases.
BasePress allows you to change from a single to a multiple KB and vice versa, at any time. This gives your knowledge base the opportunity to grow as your business grows.