FAQ: How to set up your own knowledge base
Designing structure
When setting up a new knowledge base you should first invest a few moments in
designing the structure of the documents and the structure of the knowledge base.
These are the two main areas to consider:
- Document structure
Number and titles of structure fields are configurable. Deciding
on the structure fields will define how the information in a knowledge
document is structured. During editing of documents this will be a guideline
for the editor on how to separate and structure the different parts of
information.
E.g.: A company setting up a knowledge base for technical problems and
solutions in a vacuum cleaner production line could deside to have a problem
description, a description of the solution and a separate text for additional
informations. Typically this would lead to defining three structure fields
named 'Problem', 'Solution' and 'Infos'.
E.g.: An author who wants to use powerDOCUMENTS as a general archive of
references and informations which may sometime be useful could well decide
to store a simple description without any additional document structure.
Typically this would lead to defining one structure field
possibly named 'Description' (or whatever the author likes at this place).
In general: the more specific the information in your database is the easier
it is to have a very detailed and elaborate document structure.
- Keyword structure
The keyword structure is used to classify the knowledge documents.
Effectivly this will structure the knowlede base.
This
structure should be build in way that allows to achieve the following aims:
- Every editor/debriefer should be easily able to classify his documents
(to assign the correcxt keywords to his documents).
- Every reader must be able to competently select keywords. The documents
associated to a keyword should be the documents a typical reader is
expecting to show up when he selects the keyword.
Implementing structure
After finishing the design part use the following procedure to insert the strcuture
information into the knowledge base:
- Remove example data
see "
How to get rid of the example"
for details.
- Set up document structure
Use config dialog to set the titles of the structure fields and add or
remove structure fields (accessible via menu: 'Options' > 'Edit Configuration',
ConfigKey: 'FieldTitle')
At least one structure field must be defined.
- Set up the keyword tree
Use tree editor to set up the keyword tree (accessible via menu:
'Documents' > 'Edit Keyword Tree').
Other configuration topics
There are some other points which should be looked at when creating a new
knowledge base:
- Implementing user roles
With powerDOCUMENTS it is possible to implement user roles but it
is not mandatory.
If you create a knowledge base for a small group where everyone is
expert, editor/debriefer, and reader in one person the most simple way to
implement this is: make each user a debriefer, do not bother marking
documents as completed or released. Everyone will be able to read and
edit every document.
If you want to implement some kind of acceptance/check procedure or if
you have users who should be able to read documents but should not be
able to edit you should have a look at our user role concept. See
"User Roles" and
"Document Lifecycle" for details.
- Multiple archives/databases
Also be aware that it is possible to set up different knowledge databases for
different purposes / topics. Separating topics into different databases can have
the following advantages:
- User access to the different topics can be controlled separately.
- Structuring of documents can be more specific for the needs of a given
topic.
- Keyword tree is specific to the topic (no mixing up, no problems with keywords
which have a different meaning in the context of the different topics)
See "Multiple archives" for details
on how to install different knowledge databases.
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