Business Background

Avontus is a scaffolding software provider based in the US and the UK. Their software brings efficiency, predictability, and control to every stage of scaffolding projects. Their clients are scaffolding and industrial services companies from across the globe. The 20-year-old company has four products:

• Avontus Designer is an advanced scaffolding software program that quickly creates professional scaffolding designs in 3D and provides an instant bill of materials.
• Avontus Viewer visualizes scaffold designs in 3D and virtual and augmented reality, bringing clarity to scaffolding jobs.
• Avontus Quantify is a powerful inventory management program that helps companies track their rental equipment and generate invoices.
• Avontus Counter is a free AutoCAD plug-in that counts scaffold parts and generates a bill of materials.

Business Requirement

Avontus required a knowledge management tool to host all their customer-facing documentation, including user guides, installation guides, help videos, FAQs, and troubleshooting information. They were initially hosting their site on Confluence but faced a few issues with the tool:

• The text editor had a few small issues that made authoring articles inconvenient.
• Avontus was unable to brand its documentation site as the homepage was not customizable.

Elliot Newton, technical author at Avontus, says

We found that Confluence as a tool was not suitable for customer-facing documentation.

Business Solution

This led Elliot, who has been with Avontus for four years now, to research other online knowledge management tools in the market, like Click Help and a few others. He found Document360 ranked consistently high on multiple websites and was well-reputed for its authoring features and experience.

Elliot Newton says

I did a comparison of all the other knowledge management tools on the market and found Document360 to be the best. I took it to my leadership, who approved it immediately

Some of the main features in Document360 that matched Avontus’s needs include:

• The categories section, which goes three levels deep. This was perfect for Avontus because their documentation goes very deep into the technicalities.
• Custom CSS and Javascript helped the Avontus team design the homepage to look more engaging. They could include their branding and make the knowledge base site look like an extension of their website.
• The powerful block editor has made authoring articles directly in Document360 much easier and more enjoyable.
• The weekly analytics give insights into their most-read articles and terms their customers are searching for, helping them continuously improve their knowledge base.
• The AI-powered search functionality is also much better than what Confluence had.

Elliot Newton says

The customization features gave us full control over how our documentation looked and a URL with our name on it. The site is much easier to use now.

Business Impact

The Avontus team says their communication with customers has improved after they moved their documentation to Document360. They say having all their documentation in one place and the insightful analytics has been better for business, too.

Elliot Newton says

Our internal teams also use it to give customers the link to the specific information they are looking for

Conclusion

For a small, lean, and efficient company like Avontus, Document360 gave them a simple, effective, and scalable solution for their knowledge base needs. With customers across the globe, the knowledge base site has helped them provide 24×7 support.