As companies get bigger, information gets messy. It’s spread across emails, chats, spreadsheets, documents, and team folders. Without one place to look, employees waste time searching for answers instead of doing real work.
That’s where an internal knowledge base helps.
An internal knowledge base helps businesses organize company information, make processes standard, improve teamwork and make information easy to find for employees. This includes onboarding documents, SOPs, troubleshooting guides, and project workflows. It serves as a single source for your company.
In this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about internal knowledge bases. This includes their benefits, what they’re used for, features, best practices and how to make one for your business.
What’s an internal knowledge base? (Definition)
An internal knowledge base is a company-managed repository set up for internal use. An internal knowledge base is defined as a central repository for managing and distributing all company knowledge and information.
It’s a place where all your co-workers can store and find internal documentation about company policies, processes, how-to guides, projects or products they are building, common workflows, shared logins, procedure checklists, FAQs, troubleshooting guides, etc.
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Internal Knowledge Base vs Internal Wiki
A lot of people think that an internal knowledge base and an internal wiki mean the same thing, but that is not true.
An internal knowledge base is made to store company information in a way that’s easy to find and use. It is about keeping documents organized like step-by-step guides, rules for new employees and information on how to fix problems. The internal knowledge base also has answers to frequently asked questions and company policies.
An internal wiki is different because it lets teams collaborate to create and update content. It is a way for teams to share ideas, work on projects, take notes during meetings and keep team documents up-to-date.
Here is a quick comparison:
| Internal Knowledge Base | Internal Wiki |
| Structured information repository | Collaborative documentation platform |
| Focuses on knowledge retrieval | Focuses on collaborative content creation |
| Commonly used for SOPs, policies, FAQs, and training | Commonly used for team collaboration and project notes |
| More organized and process-driven | More flexible and editable |
| Often includes permissions and advanced search | Often emphasizes open editing and collaboration |
In many modern workplaces, businesses use a combination of both. An internal wiki helps teams collaborate and create knowledge, while an internal knowledge base helps organize and distribute that knowledge across the organization efficiently.
Use cases of the internal knowledge base
Organizations can use internal knowledge bases for a multitude of reasons. The internal knowledge base can vary from company to company depending on what they do or the type of industry they serve. Some of the ways an internal knowledge base has been used include:
- Customer Service: Storing knowledge about customer FAQs and troubleshooting guides to help customers promptly.
- IT: Product specifications, how-to guides, training and onboarding documents, etc.
- Legal: Information about contracts, legal policies, approval guidelines, etc.
- HR: Information about company policies, company hierarchy, vacation policies, company culture, etc.
- Marketing: Information about marketing budget, content strategy, PR guidelines, etc.
- Sales: Sales strategies, sales enablement documents, prospect information, etc.
- Management: Information about reporting officers, policies, procedures, etc.
- Design: Company logos, design best practices, recommended color-schemes, design work for inspiration, etc.
Why does your company need an internal knowledge base?
As a company grows and evolves in this digital world, they often find themselves in a sea of information, data, and procedures that your employees need to know and follow.
It thus becomes imperative to have systems in place to better store, manage, and share organizational knowledge with employees, clients, and partners as quickly and accurately as possible.
There are many reasons why its crucial for a company to have an internal knowledge base.
1. Improved Internal Communication and Collaboration
Creating an internal knowledge base is not a one-person job. It requires every employee or at least some highly experienced ones from each department to pitch in their know-how and create a pool of knowledge for everybody in the organization to benefit from.
It’s important to create and edit information together. This provides an opportunity to improve internal workplace collaboration, transparency, and interdepartmental relationships. Also, making up-to-date changes and providing relevant information to employees helps everyone be on the same page and get work done efficiently.
2. Faster, Better Customer Service
Have you ever found yourself searching frantically for a customer query while they wait on call? Most of us have and we’ve got to say, it’s terrible.
Providing prompt answers to customer problems can go a long way in affecting your company’s bottom line. When you have all company information- troubleshooting guides, how-to manuals, FAQs, etc. all at one place, service reps are able to provide a faster, better customer experience.
3. Increased Productivity
If your employees are searching for information or shoulder tapping other employees for help, it takes away from the crucial time they could have spent working. Without a centralized knowledge system, employees waste time searching for information instead of completing work.
4. Knowledge Management
Having a central repository for all your company’s information allows organizations to document the know-how and experience of highly skilled employees so that the knowledge of the organization does not leave when that employee goes on a vacation, falls sick or leaves.
5. Faster Employee Onboarding
It could be quite challenging for new hires to adjust to a new company or industry without having any prior knowledge of the practices, procedures, standards, hierarchy, or technical know-how.
Having an internal knowledge base allows faster employee onboarding as new employees can be directed to a single resource of company information rather than having to find information themselves.
What makes a great internal knowledge base?
An ideal internal knowledge base should be able to provide a flexible workspace where employees from various departments can collaborate, give feedback, and create organizational resources that are easy to find and understand. At the same time, it should be easy and intuitive enough for anyone in the organization to use and benefit from.
Make sure that your team’s internal knowledge base has these key features in order for it to be effective and useful:
1. Real-Time Collaboration
An internal knowledge base is only as good as its content. The quality of the content can only be good if everybody in the organization can chip in, give their suggestions and feedback, and make sure that the content is accurate and up-to-date.
A competent internal knowledge base must allow real-time collaboration. This will give employees the opportunity to work together simultaneously, brainstorm ideas, innovate and solve problems with their collective experience and knowledge.
2. Powerful Search
Since an internal knowledge base is where the knowledge of the entire organization’s processes, procedures, policies, etc. is stored, it becomes absolutely necessary for it to have a powerful search feature to locate content quickly.
Knowledge is only useful when the right information is made available at the right time. You want to reduce the amount of time your team spends looking for a particular file or document and for that, a powerful search feature is a must.
3. Label Content
In order to make the most of the powerful search functionality, you must be able to add tags, titles, and descriptions to every piece of digital content that gets stored in your internal knowledge base.
Your team needs to be able to categorize and add details to make information easier to search, find and work with.
4. Smart Editor
An internal knowledge base should make the process of documentation and content creation, as easy and robust as possible. It’s important that you can share the knowledge that isn’t already created but also share current and ongoing knowledge as well.
Collaborative documents are a great way to share this collective knowledge. Make sure that the documents allow co-editing and are flexible enough to include various types of digital content.
5. Content Library
Knowledge can take any form, from your documents, files, presentations, PDFs, Excel sheets, SlideShare, YouTube videos, weblinks, images, logos, GIFs, audio files or even social media content. It’s important for your team to have all this information in one place.
Having a content library allows you to store all of your organization’s media assets at one location, making it easy for employees to store and access key information quickly.
Make sure that your internal knowledge base has features like “restricted access” or content control so that only people with access can view and share those digital assets.
6. Customized Workflows
The goal of an internal knowledge base is to allow the sharing of knowledge and information amongst team members across various departments for effective decision making and collaboration.
The knowledge base should facilitate this process by breaking down organizational silos and allow a smooth flow of cross-departmental information sharing.
7. Scalable
As your company grows, it’s obvious that your content production will increase with it. An effective knowledge base must be able to support a large number of users and huge databases.
It should be flexible enough to grow with your growing team and support a large number of new hires and subsequently, more content.
8. Flexible Permissions
Even though an internal knowledge base should generally be company-wide, there may be certain topics or content where you want to invoke user access and permissions (ex: making some content “view only“).
An internal knowledge base must support effective user management. You should be able to manage user roles and permission levels that work for your organizational structure.
Features like password protection, document tracking, file access restrictions, etc. are important to keep vital organizational data safe and secure.
What Should be Included in an Internal Knowledge Base?
A company can create a knowledge base that fits its specific needs. Some examples of internal knowledge bases that a company can create include:
- Product knowledge base: This type of knowledge base has detailed information about the company’s products or services. It includes specifications, features, usage guidelines, troubleshooting tips and asked questions.
- Process knowledge base: This internal knowledge base documents the companys processes and procedures. It includes employee onboarding, project management methodologies, quality assurance protocols and compliance guidelines.
- Customer support knowledge base: Companies can create a knowledge base to support their customer service efforts. It provides resources such as troubleshooting guides, product manuals, tutorials and self-service options for customer inquiries.
- Training and development knowledge base: This type of knowledge base supports employee training and development initiatives. It offers resources such as training modules, instructional videos, job aids and performance support materials.
Now what kinds of files can you put in a knowledge base? The content and structure may vary. Here are some general guidelines:
- Company Details: You can include reports, charts, procedures, standard operating procedures (SOPs) and lists.
- HR Documents: Employee handbooks pay information and forms are suitable for a knowledge base.
- Training Materials: Onboarding guides and training plans are essential.
- Sales Info: Case studies, sales numbers and process information help sales teams.
- Documentation: Guides, meeting agendas, processes, notes and checklists are useful.
- Marketing Documents: Content calendars and guidelines are important.
- Media Files: Press releases and images can be included.
- Design Guides: Branding information and design rules help maintain consistency.
- Documents: Contracts and policies should be easily accessible.
- Customer Service: Frequently asked questions and email templates are helpful.
An internal knowledge base should be flexible. Cover what employees need to know to do their jobs well. Employees should have a say in what gets included, too.
Use Bit.ai to Create an Internal Knowledge Base
When it comes to creating and managing your internal knowledge base, you’d be remiss not to consider using a tool like Bit.ai.
Bit.ai is a new-age collaborative document platform that combines the functionalities of a wiki with those of a document platform. Users can effortlessly collaborate in real-time, creating and editing documents together, regardless of their location.
Let’s take a look at some of the features that make Bit.ai an excellent choice for your internal knowledge base needs:
1. Workspaces
Bit.ai’s workspaces are like virtual hubs where all the activity takes place. Bit.ai allows you to create unlimited workspaces, which means you can create different types of workspaces depending on your needs, whether it’s for each department, a specific project, or even for collaborating with clients.
2. Unlimited Hierarchy
Having all your information in one place is great, but what’s even better is being able to organize it effectively for easy accessibility. With Bit.ai, you can create an unlimited hierarchy of folders as well as documents.
Inside a folder in Bit.ai, you can store smart documents, wikis, and even more folders.
3. Smart Documents
One of the key features of Bit.ai is its document design system. With just a click, you can completely change the look and feel of your document. You can choose from different themes, adjust the layout, and even change the primary color to match your brand with just a couple of clicks. Plus, you can customize the fonts for your headings and body text, giving your documents a professional and polished appearance.
Bit.ai also supports integration from over 100 popular apps. This means you can include things like cloud files, code snippets, images, social media content, spreadsheets, surveys, videos, and much more directly into your Bit documents. It’s a great way to make your documents more dynamic and engaging.
4. AI Genius Writer
Everyone values their time. We all wish for simpler processes and smarter ways of working. That’s where Bit.ai’s AI Genius Writer comes in. Bit.ai’s AI Genius is a powerful tool designed to streamline your work processes, saving you time and effort. It utilizes artificial intelligence to assist you in generating powerful documents and wikis quickly and efficiently.
5. External Knowledge Bases
Bit’s smart documents and wikis do a lot more than just help people inside the company. You can turn your wiki into a website that people outside the company can use. This makes it easy for them to view and interact with the content you put on the website. If you want to share updates about a project, teach people something, or give them instructions on how to use a product, Bit has everything you need to make talking to people outside the company easier.
When people at work spend a lot of time looking for answers, an internal knowledge base is like a person who always knows what to say. It can help with any questions people have. So why not get started now? Stop bothering your coworkers with questions. Start making an internal knowledge base today. Bit’s internal knowledge base is like a helper that’s always available to answer questions and provide information. Bit’s internal knowledge base is a valuable resource because it helps people find the information they need quickly and easily.
FAQs
1. What is a knowledge base, and why does my business need one?
An internal knowledge base is a repository where your team stores information about your company. This makes it easy for people to find and share things. It also helps your team work better and saves them time.
2. How does Bit.ai help me build a knowledge base?
Bit.ai is a tool that helps you build an internal knowledge base. Bit.ai has features like working in real time and a smart way to organize things. It also has a search and something called AI Genius. These features help you create content quickly and keep your internal knowledge base up to date with Bit.ai.
3. Can I add videos and pictures to my internal knowledge base documents with Bit.ai?
Yes, you can add all sorts of things to your documents with Bit.ai. You can add videos, pictures and even presentations. This makes your documents more interesting and fun to look at with Bit.ai.
4. Is Bit.ai a place to store my company’s sensitive information?
Yes, Bit.ai is very safe. Bit.ai has ways to control who can see your information and who can not. You can also add passwords to keep things safe with Bit.ai. This helps keep your company’s information with Bit.ai.
