Onboarding non-technical team members to Confluence Cloud

Question

I am trying to come up with a plan for onboarding team members who are not incredibly computer-proficient.

Ideally, I would be able to add them to our Confluence and set passwords for them without their involvement, then just send them directly to the log-in screen with their email address and pre-set password.

So my steps would be:

* Add team members and set passwords in advance
* Email them a short video tutorial to explain how to log in

I am having trouble with setting passwords in advance. I was able to add my users, but to set the password, I need to click "reset", which sends them an email, so direct-add doesn't do much good in terms of getting them in without their involvement.

Any thoughts on this, or ideas about simple onboarding for non-computer-savvy team members?

Thanks!

James Bullock · Answer

1 - Helping them sign in is half the problem. They need a reason to sign in, which is content.

Most of the rest is notions of content that would draw early users in to using a KMS.

2 - Yes, what I wrote is concept / instances, so "saying the same thing" - ish. Concept: give them a reason to use the thing. Instaces: examples of kinds of content useful to people trying to get started in a confluence KMS.

I don't know how else to say this. If it isn't clear with this attempt, I'm willing to declare failure. Maybe somebody else can help.

Nathan Meffert · Answer

Thanks for the response. Helpful to think about.

1 – I don't really understand what you're saying here.

2 – That's some good food for thought. When you say "read-only everybody account", is that a publically-accessible site?

3 – I think you're saying the same thing here, just in different terms, as #2.

All the best!

James Bullock · Answer

You're looking at wrangling the tech so they can get in and do stuff.

The other half of the problem is supporting and encouraging them as they get in and do stuff. They have to adopt and use the tech they can access. Answering that second part is an article, but the short form is:

1 - Set up to consume stuff they deliver with Confluence, either delivered in / via Confluence, or delivered better by their using Confluence to do the work.

2 - Have JIT resources around, to help them do the thing of the moment. Let's call that a Knowledge Base. Getting started guides, with hooks to how to work through impediments would be good. Stuff like: "Here's what to do if your account doesn't seem to start." (Me, I'd make a general read-only "everybody" account, for the "getting your account going" stuff.)

3 - So, the first thing to teach them is really self-service: finding resources to help themselves do their work, using Confluence. Really good would be a highly-available, searchable repository-thing for answers, and examples of self-service, and even the Knowledge Base in #2. Let's call that a "Knowledge Management System", or KMS. If only there were technology that did this...

Give them a reason and the means, and they'll work through the tech setups with you.

OK, so that's most of the article right there.