Build a company knowledgebase 08/18/06

 

Create an up-datable and searchable knowledge base of your post facility’s information.  This is a great way to keep track of and manage editing procedures and policies.

The best way to do this is by creating and maintaining a wiki.  There are lots of different types of wiki software.  Open-source, proprietary, local or remote-hosted.  They all have their pros and cons.  The solution depends on your IT and budget capacity.  The example I’ll use is the PB Works wiki.  It’s cloud-based wiki software that is extremely easy to set up and use.  The functionality though, is dependent on which edition you have.  I highly recommend using the business version because of all the security benefits.

 

PB Works has great video tutorials and a user-friendly user manual.  I would suggest watching the latest tutorial first to get familiar with the interface and functionality.  My goal in this hack is to give you ideas on how you could structure your post-production wiki.

 

After you setup your wiki create a new workspace.

 

 

Call this workspace Evergreen.

 

 

Double-click on Evergreen and you will be taken to the home screen of your workspace.

 

 

Click the Edit tab.

 

 

Now you will be able to edit your front page.

 

 

Type in the text below.  Format where necessary.

 

 

(As you can see there is another workspace for current projects.  Those step-by-step instructions for creating a project wiki are in The Project Wiki hack).

 

To create the folders and pages listed on your homepage, click on the Pages & Files tab

 

 

 

Click on the New tab to create a new folder.

 

 

Create 3 folders called ADMINISTRATIVE, INVENTORY and PROCEDURES

 

With the Administrative folder selected, create a new Page.

 

 

Create the pages Company Directory and Organization Chart

 

Repeat this for the other pages that reside in the other folders.  You should end up with 2 pages in your Administrative folder, 2 pages in your Inventory folder and 11 pages in your Procedures folder.

 

 

Navigate back to your wiki front page.  Click the Edit tab.  Highlight Company Directory under Administrative.

 

 

Click the add link button:

 

 

PB Works will assume that you want to link to the page Company Directory that you created earlier.  Select it.

 

 

Now you will have a link from your homepage to your Company Directory.

 

Repeat this with the rest of the items in your directory.

 

 

Tips: Your company / department Evergreen wiki should be reviewed on a regular basis.  There will mostly be changes to the wiki content when:

• new software or hardware is purchased

• upgrades in currently used software force changes in existing procedures

• new procedures are created

• existing procedures are modify after a post-project analysis is conducted

• the IT department or legal department announce policies that effect content creation

As indicated on the example there should be only one administrator.  Depending on the facility this person would be either an assistant-editor, senior editor, production manager or post-production supervisor.