Knowledge Base Software Features
Knowledge Base Software allows you to share information within your enterprise from your website or Intranet with an enterprise-grade knowledge base. It helps to reduce customer support, improving staff productivity and eliminating time wasted searching for information across disparate systems such as shared folders and paper documents.
There are a number of knowledge base software in the market and have many powerful functions. These functions may vary from one software application to other knowledge base software application. But there are some functions that are common among most of the knowledge management software applications. By using it staff, customers and partners can access information locally or over the Internet and its powerful group-based permission architecture makes it easy to share knowledge with only the people or groups you choose.
Knowledge Base Software Features
- Publish - Share knowledge, including Microsoft Office documents and PDF files from your web browser.
- Feedback - Various feedback mechanisms (comments & ratings) help to improve quality of knowledge.
- Attachments - Attach files to articles and search the contents of Microsoft Office and PDF attachments easily.
- Publish Dates - Set expiry dates to control the life-cycle of knowledge base articles and show time-sensitive knowledge items only when required.
- Active Response - Provide commonly requested knowledge in response to search words as they are typed.
- Quick Edit - Quickly change existing articles while browsing your knowledge base.
- Search - Fast search of knowledge items including META data, custom fields and attachments.
- Syndicate - Share content via RSS with automatic syndication of categories, hot topics, etc.
- Users - Multiple user accounts which can be assigned to local or LDAP groups.
- Print - Printer friendly versions of all knowledge items are only a click away.
- PDF Export - Export knowledge items into PDF format for printing or archiving in just one click.
- Email - Send links to knowledge items via email to friends, customers or associates.
- Backups - Backup your entire knowledge base in just a few clicks from the control panel.
- Related Articles - Related knowledge items are detected and shown automatically to facilitate easy browsing.
- Custom Fields - Create, assign, filter and search unlimited custom data fields for knowledge items.
- Statistics - Get a complete overview of how customers, staff and partners are using your knowledge base.
- Import - Import existing knowledge items using the CSV-based import wizard.
- SEO Friendly - Knowledgebase items must be SEO friendly links that contain article title in links.
- Groups - Flexible group-based permissions for granular control over your entire knowledge base.
- LDAP Integration - Integrate users and groups from Microsoft Active Directory, Novell eDirectory, etc.
Hundreds and thousands of organizations, small businesses, universities and enterprise organizations are using knowledge base software. Knowledge base software can be used to cater different needs of the organization that is using this software like:
Reduce in-bound customer support
Knowledge base software really helps to reduce the in-bound customer support. Mostly, there is an interactive help interface which makes it easy to find the answer of your queries. It will contribute to decrease queries of customers in form of e-mails or calling to your support department. Your knowledge base can also be integrated into your contact/support forms to provide instant answers to customer’s questions as they type, reducing support even further. Active response system in knowledge base software can be integrated into any website form. Customers can easily search knowledge items and attachments. Popular search terms make it easy to find help fast.
Share company documents and procedures
Knowledge based software offers you the facility to share the documents among the staff members whether they are present in one physical location or one hundred, knowledge base software makes it easy for them to share, search, rate and print company documents, procedures and more. Forget email or network file servers - now everyone has access to the same single version of a document from the same location. Documents are accessible through any computer that is connected to intranet or web. Built in feed back loops help staff to improve their knowledge.
Eliminate staff training time
A company can eliminate a considerable time for training its staff by using the knowledge base management software. If a company provides its policies and procedure in its knowledge base, it will help in quicker staff training. You reduce staff training time significantly and give new staff members a "hands on" approach to learning. You can achieve this objective by uploading company’s procedures and documents which are instantly indexed and searchable. Categories can be password protected and restricted as per the privilege level of a user. All these knowledge items can be printed or exported to different formats as offered by the particular knowledge base software for saving. These knowledge items can be assigned to the new comers for reading and self training purposes.