Knowledge base in Confluence

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It's been reported the average employee spends 30 minutes per day searching for information they need to do their jobs. That's time that could be spent doing productive work, collaborating with team members, or maybe even taking a break!

While a knowledge base can't promise to give all of that time back to workers, it can help. 

Teams and businesses can use it to collect and store information relevant to their roles, projects and organisations in one place. A good knowledge base can be a game-changer for the modern distributed workforce - here's why Confluence is the perfect fit.

A knowledge base can serve external customers and internal employees

Think of a knowledge base as your single source of truth for information relating to products, services, projects and departments. It can store documents, meeting notes, ideas and guides, making it easy for users to get all the information they need in one place. 

An external knowledge base can be used for…

• Product and technical documentation
• Customer support information

An internal knowledge base can be used for…

• Employee training guides
• HR information (e.g. onboarding, handbooks, policies)
• Company information 
• A well-maintained knowledge base has many benefits

Here are just some of the key ways a well-maintained knowledge base can help your business:

Save time and money

When users know exactly where to search for information, they'll save valuable time - and spend that being even more productive! Think of the time you waste every day looking for different messages, documents and project data. Now imagine all that information is carefully labelled, organised and stored in one place for your team to access.

Give your customer support team a helping hand

A customer support-focused knowledge base lets users troubleshoot their own issues and learn how to use products and services effectively. This means support teams can devote more time to addressing complex cases and less time answering the same old support tickets. 

Keep remote workers up to date

It's not always easy to support remote workers. Different locations and time zones make it tricky for team members to connect and collaborate. Help these team members get the information they need by hosting it on your company's knowledge base. Remember to add updated meeting notes!

Why Confluence is the right place for your knowledge base

Confluence is the perfect platform for an internal or external knowledge base. It lets you build pages and spaces that individuals, teams, and customers can access, with page and space permissions helping to determine who can view and edit specific knowledge base areas. 

With a wiki-style interface, contributors can create and edit content together, no matter where and when they're working. This means information stays fresh and accurate, and inbuilt search functionality helps users navigate through content.

A Confluence knowledge base built using the Card macro from Content Formatting Macros for Confluence.

Building your best Confluence knowledge base

Before you start building, consider the following:

Know what you need

Only start building your base once you understand your organisation's needs. Is it a customer-focused hub with documentation, an FAQ section and a support form? Or is it an intranet with HR policies and onboarding information signposted? If you need help getting started, Confluence templates can be an excellent jumping-off point.

Think about your user journey

Ensure your navigation is clear and your key pages are linked to your home page. You can make your space even more accessible by using Content Formatting Macros to help your links and content stand out. Add the Card macro to create clickable tiles and display information in a website-style setting, or create and stylise buttons and hyperlinks with the Buttons and Button Group macro.

Decide who'll keep your content updated

A knowledge base is only effective if its information is relevant and accurate. Set permissions to determine who can create, edit and delete content, and consider assigning someone (or a team of people) to oversee content and ensure it's up-to-date.

Make it look good

Keep users engaged by making your Confluence knowledge base easy on the eye. Clear away the clutter with tabs and highlight key content with background colours and images. Use Confluence add-ons, like Content Formatting Macros for Confluence, to quickly and easily take your knowledge base from zero to hero.

Best practice for building your knowledge base

• Use labels and templates to help people standardise their articles and pages.
• Perform regular audits to help keep content accurate, findable and accessible.
• Add search bars and the Recently Updated macro to help people quickly find what they need.
• Create articles that answer frequently asked questions that come through to customer support. This lets users self-serve before raising tickets.
• Use plugins to expand the functionality and design of your Confluence knowledge base.

If you need help to build your Confluence knowledge base, stay tuned for our next blog in the series. If you're ready to get stuck into creating your space, you can try Content Formatting Macros now for free. 

Got any questions or tips? Share them in the comments! We'd love to hear from you.