8 essential features of modern knowledge base tools

Having a solid knowledge base in place is incredibly useful, both for your customers and your internal team.

But finding the right knowledge management tool is hard work.

There are so many platforms to choose from that it can be pretty overwhelming to find the right one for your business.

But don’t worry. In this article, we’ve outlined the 8 essential knowledge base features you need to look out for to help narrow down your search.

But before we get to that, let’s clarify what a knowledge base is and why you should use one.

​​What is a knowledge base?

A knowledge base is an online platform that hosts a variety of business information.

From FAQs and how-to guides to instructional videos and forums, a knowledge base provides users with all the information they need about a product, service, or business.

Take a look at staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud’s knowledge base, for example.

We provide users with a range of information about our software. This includes video tutorials, workflow solutions for specific business areas, and a community forum for users to ask questions and receive feedback.

Why should you have a knowledge base?

Knowledge management is no easy feat.

It takes time to create a knowledge base that can sufficiently help users. Not to mention, the ongoing work required to keep all the information up-to-date is pretty time-consuming, too.

So why should you bother?

Well, the answer depends on what type of knowledge base you’re creating. There are different benefits based on whether it’s for internal or external use.

Let’s break it down.

For internal use

An internal knowledge base software solution is for employees and team members.

It provides them with the company knowledge they need to understand all of the business processes. This could be anything from holiday requests to making a sale.

Why is an internal knowledge base beneficial?

Here are a couple of reasons:

• Aligning your team. Having an internal knowledge base encourages everyone to follow the same processes and procedures.

This makes your workflow more efficient and helps employees to be as productive as possible in their day-to-day work.

• Centralizing information. With an internal knowledge base, there’s no need for employees to flick between various platforms to find relevant information.

Instead, they can easily access all the information they need in one central location. As you can imagine, this saves a lot of time.

For external use

An external knowledge base system is for clients and customers. It covers everything relating to your product or service.

Let’s take a look at some of the benefits that come with using an external knowledge base:

• Providing a better customer experience. Customers can access helpful information when it suits them. They don’t have to wait for a response from customer support or contact someone directly.

This instant access provides customers with a better experience, allowing them to solve problems on their own time.

• Increasing efficiency. When customers use a knowledge base, chances are they’ll spend less time reaching out to your support team.

And the less amount of time your team spends helping customers with queries means more time spent working on other tasks.

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8 essential features of modern knowledge base tools

As we’ve already mentioned, trying to find the right knowledge base system for your business is a tricky task.

To make the process easier, we’ve outlined 8 of the essential features you should look out for. This should help you discard the platforms that don’t offer the features you need and focus on those that do.

1. Knowledge sharing and collaboration

Being able to share helpful information is important, particularly for internal teams.

Imagine you’re planning a new marketing campaign. Part of the campaign involves using the analytics from your CRM, but someone in your team is struggling with the CRM software.

Fortunately, your internal knowledge base has the information they need to understand the analytics and use the software. All you have to do is share it with your colleague, and the rest is history.

Now, imagine you weren’t able to easily share this information.

Your ability to support your colleague is restricted, and you might have to spend time taking them through the analytics yourself. Not only will this take longer, but it’ll also impact your productivity.

And that’s why you need a platform that allows you to easily share files and collaborate with your team.

With efficient file sharing features, you can support other team members, collaborate on projects, and improve efficiency.

Take a look at staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud as an example. With our platform, people can easily create and share new documents and articles.

2. Automations

Automations allow you to automate repetitive tasks, which helps you streamline the management of your knowledge base.

Let’s say you want to notify your entire team whenever new information gets added or updated on your knowledge base.

This is a repetitive and arduous task. You’d have to manually keep track of all the updates and make sure to notify everyone as and when they happen. It sounds exhausting.

But with automation, you can save yourself the hassle.

You can create an automation that’s triggered by any updates to your knowledge base. As soon as this happens, the platform notifies the entire team — and you don’t have to lift a finger.

So when you’re looking for knowledge management software, make sure automation is part of the package. Trust us when we say you’re going to want them.

3. View/access options

Being able to control access levels allows you to manage who can see certain information.

But why is this an important feature for a knowledge base system?

Think about it. Chances are not everyone needs to see all the information in your knowledge base, right?

We can’t imagine that the IT team will need to review sales processes and procedures, and vice versa.

By controlling access levels, you can filter the information that everyone sees. As a result, your teams won’t be bogged down by information that’s not relevant.

This makes the platform much easier to navigate and much more efficient to use.

4. Search

Without this feature, your users could struggle to find the information they need.

And if users can’t find what they need, it defeats the point of having a knowledge base in the first place.

A search function makes your knowledge base easier to navigate. Users can head to your knowledge base, search for the word or phrase they want to know more about, and see all the information relating to it.

Take a look at staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud’s knowledge base as an example.

Our landing page features a clear search bar. As soon as users start to search, a list of related information appears instantly. Here’s an example:

So think about how you want your users to navigate your system. If you want them to be able to search for the information they need, make sure the knowledge management system you use has a search function.

5. Integrate with projects, campaigns, and departments

An integrated knowledge base certainly has its benefits.

Whether that’s connecting entire projects, specific campaigns, or different departments, integrating your workflow with your knowledge base helps everyone be more efficient.

For instance, let’s say you’ve aligned your knowledge base with your company structure. This means you’ve changed the information that’s available to users based on their role at the company.

So when someone from your marketing team logs in to the system, they’ll automatically be shown marketing information.

What we’re trying to say is aligning your knowledge base with your company makes it easier for your teams to find the information they need.

As a result, they can be more productive in their daily work.

But this isn’t a feature of every knowledge management solution.

Not all platforms will offer this level of personalization, so make sure you keep this in mind when you’re looking for the right software.

6. User-friendly interface

When it comes to a knowledge base system, the last thing you want is an overly complicated interface.

If it’s too difficult to navigate, users will find it hard to get the information they need.

And that’s why you need a platform with a simple and intuitive interface.

This helps customers and employees navigate the content easier. After all, the purpose of the knowledge base is to provide easy access to information.

Take a look at staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud’s knowledge base as an example.

When users head over to our knowledge base, the information is divided into 6 categories. It’s simple but effective, which is pretty much what you want from any knowledge base system.

7. Add comments and questions

Being able to add comments and ask questions is beneficial for both internal and external knowledge base users.

So let’s break it down by user type.

• For internal teams. Adding comments to knowledge base articles allows the team to communicate asynchronously.

This means they can collaborate with their team without having to respond in real-time, which is incredibly useful if your team is working remotely.

Not to mention, having a clear record of any questions and comments can be helpful for other users, too.

• For external use. Communicating with the company and other users is a great way for your customers to solve problems that your knowledge base might not directly address.

To provide them with this level of support, you might want to consider a community forum or help center for customers to ask questions and communicate with other users. Take a look at staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud’s community forum as an example:

So if you want your knowledge base to allow users to communicate, make sure the platform has the features required to add comments and ask questions. This will undoubtedly improve their experience and make sure they get the answers they’re looking for.

8. Multimedia capabilities

To provide your users with the best experience possible, you need a platform that can upload multimedia files.

Multimedia files include the following:

• Documents
• Images
• Videos
• Voice recordings

Why is this feature so important?

Imagine a customer is reading through a how-to guide you’ve uploaded. The guide is pretty long, and the customer is finding it hard to follow.

They suggest creating a video guide instead, as this will be quicker to digest and easier to follow.

It sounds like a great idea, right?

That’s because it is. But only if your software allows you to upload video.

If you’re not able to, you’ll have to keep providing customers with text-heavy guides. And unfortunately, that’s not to everyone’s taste.

So make sure the platform you use gives you the flexibility to upload a variety of file formats. Your users will thank you.

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Using staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud as a knowledge base system

As a Work OS, staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud helps teams organize their entire workflow from start to finish.

Our software is easy to use, intuitive, and customizable.

And that’s why our platform is the perfect company knowledge base system.

Let’s take a look at our features in more detail, so you can see exactly how our platform can help you create an efficient and effective knowledge base.

Customize your knowledge base

At staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud, we know how important it is for teams to customize their workflow — especially when it comes to your knowledge base.

That’s why we offer a variety of customizations.

Whether that’s customizing our templates, creating custom automations, or integrating with third-party platforms, we’ll help you create a knowledge base that’s perfectly tailored to your needs.

Make changes to your information in real-time

staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud is a cloud-based platform, meaning you can use our software to create an online knowledge base.

It also means that updates happen in real-time.

If you need to make a quick update to a knowledge article or amend some information in one of your how-to guides, the changes you make in the text editor will be instant.

Plan and schedule your content creation

staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud is the perfect platform to plan, manage, and execute your knowledge base content.

Why?

Because with our software, you can visualize all the support content you plan to create, assign tasks to team members, and track project progress.

We even have a fully customizable content calendar template you can use to get started.

Find the perfect knowledge base solution

Having read this article, your search for the perfect platform should be much easier.

You know what a knowledge base is, the importance of using one, and what features to look out for in a knowledge base platform.

If you want to test the waters, why not give staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud a try? We’d suggest using our content calendar to start planning your knowledge base content.

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