Knowledge Base Software

Types Of Knowledge Base Software

Now that you understand knowledge base software, you’ll appreciate knowing that the types of knowledge base software out there are quite varied. Knowledge bases are specialized depending on the purpose of their content, which can range from highly technical knowledge bases to simple FAQs for a product.

External/Self-Service Knowledge Base

This is a knowledge base model that is available online, where you will learn about customer-facing documentation sites.

Software Documentation

Software documentation is important for the users of software products who are learning how to use the system. It can include installation guides, troubleshooting guides, feature guides, onboarding materials, and more.

Product Documentation

Many companies sell products that require assembly or need other information to learn how to use the product. Product documentation schools your users in the art of getting to know the product and reduces the need for contacting customer support.

User Manual

A user manual is basically a handbook for helping customers understand products and services, and usually provides instructions for how to operate the product. A user manual is structured like a book, which users can navigate backward and forward.

FAQ Pages

Many organizations maintain a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section on their website. An FAQ page houses short, clear answers to common questions raised by users, helping them quickly find information regardless of the industry. Customers can consult the FAQs whenever they have a query, reducing the load on the support team.

Troubleshooting Guide

Customers may typically encounter common problems with products, in which case they can be best served with a troubleshooting guide to provide them with solutions. The troubleshooting guide shares different ways of diagnosing the problem and suggests ways of fixing it.

Installation Guide

When customers buy a new product, they may need to know how to install it on their system. The installation guide contains requirements for the systems and takes the user step-by-step through the installation process.

Internal Knowledge Base

Internal knowledge bases are typically aimed at educating employees in your company.

Standard Operating Procedure

A Standard Operating Procedure contains all the procedures and processes employees are required to know in order to execute their jobs properly. The SOP takes employees through the steps and shows them the desired outcome as well as the necessary requirements.

Employee Handbook

An employee handbook contains all the information relating to the company, such as corporate culture, HR information, benefits, finance, and more. Employees consult the handbook whenever they have a question about working at the company.

Process Documentation

Many companies need to document their processes to ensure that they can be duplicated when certain employees are away or leave their jobs. Process documentation makes your company’s processes explicit and helps employees to replicate them.

Project Documentation

Projects may have specific documentation that captures the essence of the project, such as meeting notes, goals and objectives, business cases, project schedules, and more. This type of documentation means that anyone coming in to work on the project can get up to speed quickly.

Sales Documentation

Sales documentation is any type of information that your sales reps need in order to close deals successfully. Sales documentation helps your reps prospect, close deals, and handle objections.

Why Do Businesses Need Knowledge Base Software?

It’s common for most types of companies to have an online knowledge base these days. This is especially true for fast-growing SaaS startups with a large amount of documentation, but the purpose of these knowledge bases can vary.

To Reduce Support Tickets

Knowledge base software usually falls under the realm of customer support, and it helps companies with their customer self-service.

If they can direct customers towards a knowledge base that will help to reduce support tickets, your support agents can then spend more time handling complex queries – and less time answering standard questions.

In this case, your company’s knowledge base is usually public and indexable by Google. These also tend to be product knowledge bases intended for self-service, so customers can find your documentation when troubleshooting online. This has a number of benefits for both SEO and marketing.

Team collaboration and knowledge-sharing

Knowledge base software can also be used for creating an internal knowledge base. This could be for your support staff to share crucial information about support tickets with each other, or for the benefit of anyone in the company who needs access to a shared information repository.

Your knowledge base can also be made private behind a login page or accessible only through a particular IP address. This is the case for many internal knowledge bases with sensitive information.

Employee Productivity

Employees can work smarter, not harder, with an internal knowledge base. When they have access to vital information right at their fingertips, this can improve productivity because they don’t have to waste time searching for the right person to answer their question. They know that the company’s knowledge is stored right within the knowledge base, which helps employees understand what they don’t know. Instead of wasting time gathering information, employees can spend more time on business-critical activities that are directly tied to productivity.

Customer Retention

Customers who have access to a self-service knowledge base are more likely to be retained over time, because they don’t have to wait around to have their questions answered. They know the company has anticipated their wants and needs, and has provided them with helpful resources needed to provide solutions.

When companies allow customers to use self-service, this improves the support experience overall, resulting in happier, more satisfied customers. When customers are assured of a positive support experience, they are likely to return to your company again and again.

Knowledge base software is useful in this case because it has all the functionality you need out-of-the-box. You don’t have to hack together an unwieldy solution like SharePoint or Google Docs. It’s also handy if you already have a ticketing system you feel happy with, and just need some knowledge base software.

Knowledge Base Software Features To Look For

Knowledge base software is very useful, and it also has unique features that set it apart from similar types of software, like Content Management Systems (CMS).

Most CMS software is designed for blogs, e-commerce sites, or company brand sites (think WordPress or Squarespace). These platforms don’t have the functionality required for them to be a self-service or internal knowledge base. They lack advanced Information Architecture and editorial functionality.

The key features of knowledge base software are the front-end experience for customers and the back-end of the software interface for users. For example, in Document360 ,you can collaborate more effectively with other authors through commenting and multiple role permissions.

1. Content Creation & Authoring

The primary purpose of the knowledge base software is authoring content, designed to be used independently of a Word editor and then copied and pasted. Everything you need for content creation is contained within your knowledge base.

Rich Editing Tools

Advanced WYSIWYG editor for visually rich articles – view the final article as it will display on the website, requiring minimal technical knowledge (it’s as easy as writing a post for social media)

Markdown editor with live preview for technical authors – write your content in Markdown for a better developer experience, and write in a more streamlined fashion

AI-Assisted Writing

AI Writing Agent (Eddy) generates, reformats, or summarizes content – overcome writer’s block with the valuable input that a tool like Document360’s Eddy AI can provide by turning prompts into content

SEO title & meta description suggestion tools – automate the creation of these important features of your web articles, optimized for search engines

AI Generated Glossaries and FAQ – automatically create glossaries and FAQs for your knowledge base with AI-input

Templates & Reuse

Article templates for faster, consistent article creation – save your templates to the knowledge base system to easily create similar articles at scale

Tags and reusable content snippets for structured content management – save short snippets of text for easy update across the knowledge base by inserting them into your articles

2. Structure & Organization

One of the main features that sets knowledge base software apart from other related types of software is the structural and organizational features for content being highly adaptable and flexible.

Hierarchical Categorization

Organize content into 6 levels of categories and sub-categories for intuitive browsing – categories can be changed, and along with drag-and-drop reorganizing

Multiple Knowledge Base Management

Create separate public, private, or mixed knowledge base portals – companies can use the same tool for different types of knowledge bases, making it easier to manage their content

Supports managing documentation across different products, teams, or audiences – multiple teams can have access to your tool, depending on which knowledge base they need for their team

Version History & Control

Track changes, review edits, compare versions, and roll back to prior versions if needed – another feature that makes knowledge base software similar to other Word-based tools

3. AI-Driven Search & User Assistance

AI offers many more capabilities within the knowledge base to improve the user experience of your self-service support. AI can support users in finding content easily by using natural language and instantly searching the knowledge base to return answers. 

Advanced Search Engine

AI-powered semantic search with typo tolerance and suggestion logic – support users to search for content with smarter search tools

Interactive AI Assistant

“Ask Eddy” — an AI chatbot experience that answers queries in natural language – AI assistants draw upon the knowledge within your knowledge base to provide highly tailored answers

Ticket Deflector & Widgets

Smart widget that suggests relevant articles before a support ticket is created – predict what users want to ask your team and save time and effort by suggesting relevant articles

4. Customization & Branding

Your knowledge base should represent your company and knowledge base software. It shouldn’t just look like every other knowledge base. That’s why knowledge base software offers features that enable you to customize and tailor your knowledge base to your needs.

Brand-Aligned Knowledge Base Site

Custom home pages, domains, layouts, and styles – change your knowledge to suit your brand by customizing every feature

Advanced Styling

Inject custom HTML, CSS, or JavaScript for full control of look and feel – don’t just rely on templates, but use development resources to adapt your knowledge base even further

Smart Bars & Notifications

Site-wide announcement banners (e.g., updates, promotions) – draw your audience’s attention to what you want them to know with banners

5. Security & Access Management

When creating a knowledge base, it’s important to control who has access to your content, especially based on their role within your organization. Different users have different access needs, and these can be controlled centrally within the knowledge base.

Role-Based Permissions

Assign precise roles (Admin, Editor, Draft Writer, Reader) with granular privileges – when your users log in, they will only see what you want them to see and take action based on requirements

Single Sign-On (SSO) & IP Restrictions

Integrate with corporate identity systems and secure access control options – keep your data secure in your knowledge base, and use existing systems to simplify access

Backup & Restore

Automatic daily backups with restore capabilities for data safety – knowledge base content is secure, with the risk of only minimal data loss

6. Analytics & Insight

After you’ve rolled out your knowledge base, it’s important to track usage and find out how users engage with your content. Instead of asking them outright, benefit from access to key insights.

Performance & Engagement Metrics

Article views, search patterns, user behavior, and feedback tracking – these metrics tell you how users are interacting with your knowledge base

Content Gaps & SEO Analytics

Identify what users are searching for but not finding – failed searches indicate an opportunity for new content

Traffic and SEO performance monitoring – find out how your knowledge base is performing in the search results

AI Search Analytics

Spot gaps where AI couldn’t find answers and refine content accordingly – AI becomes better when you help it find answers

Measure AI query success rate to validate ROI on smarter search – understand how AI search is performing when users search for terms

Analyze intent recognition trends to improve predictive content creation – align your content with the intent of your users to make self-service better

7. Collaboration & Workflow

Knowledge base teams work better together. The intention is for you to use your knowledge base software as an end-to-end solution for creating your content, reducing the need to navigate between different tools.

Editorial Workflows

Custom review and approval processes for quality control – produce higher quality content by putting checks in place

Feedback & Comments

Built-in feedback tools to capture likes, dislikes, and comments on articles – direct feedback from your users tells you how good your content is

Team Management

Manage team accounts, assign tasks, and monitor contributions – use the knowledge base to manage your team and how they contribute to content

8. Third-Party Integrations

Knowledge bases work better when you integrate them with third-party tools, and especially the ones that you are already using. Knowledge base software comes with many built-in integrations to help you connect your apps.

Connect with helpdesks, chat systems, analytics tools, collaboration platforms, and automation workflows – expand the functionality of your knowledge base with other tools

9. Localization & Multilingual Support

Many companies are not local – they’re global. And that means managing content in different languages, which can be difficult if you don’t have the support from the right tools. Knowledge base software makes your life a lot easier. 

Language Versions

Publish and manage content in 50+ languages – use the in-built translation tools to create your multilingual content

10. Enhanced Reader Experience

Ultimately, you choose your knowledge base software based on what will benefit your readers the most. Several features improve the reader experience and make interacting with your content a pleasure.

PDF Export & Offline Access

Readers can download articles or entire categories as PDF – this makes access better for users without internet, but who need to use your content in the field

Follow & Notifications

Users can follow content and receive updates on changes – open a constant dialogue with your readers to let them know when new content is ready

Private Sharing Links

Securely share specific articles with external stakeholders without full access – control access to specific content in cases where security means you can’t give knowledge base access to a user

Best Knowledge Base Software

Now we’re going to look at some of the top knowledge base solutions in the market.

Document360