Knowledge Base Archives - IT Glue https://www.itglue.com/blog/category/documentation/knowledge-base/ Truly Powerful IT Documentation Software Wed, 04 Sep 2024 09:38:28 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.1 https://www.itglue.com/wp-content/uploads/cropped-logomark-itglue-black@4x-32x32.png Knowledge Base Archives - IT Glue https://www.itglue.com/blog/category/documentation/knowledge-base/ 32 32 What is Knowledge Management? https://www.itglue.com/blog/knowledge-management/ Tue, 07 May 2024 17:03:21 +0000 https://www.itglue.com/?post_type=blog_posts&p=10420 In this blog, we'll discuss the different types of knowledge management, the strategies involved and how you can build a knowledge-centric organization.

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Knowledge management (KM) is a powerful strategy that significantly boosts organizational performance and competitive advantage. It encompasses the processes of creating, capturing, sharing and effectively utilizing knowledge within a company. This blog aims to break down the essentials of KM, its key components and why it matters so much in our interconnected world. Along the way, we’ll discuss how IT Glue, a leader in this area, can help you leverage knowledge to improve your business operations.

What is knowledge management?

KM refers to the deliberate and strategic management of an organization’s knowledge assets to create value and achieve both tactical and strategic goals. This comprehensive discipline involves a series of coordinated initiatives, processes, strategies and systems designed to improve the way knowledge is collected, stored, accessed, shared and utilized within a company.

KM’s goal is to ensure that valuable information and expertise within the organization are effectively transformed into accessible intellectual capital, which can then be leveraged to meet specific business objectives. This includes:

  • Storage: Safely storing knowledge so that it is easily accessible to the right people at the right time.
  • Assessment: Regularly evaluating the quality, relevance and impact of the information held.
  • Sharing: Facilitating the free flow of information among employees to bolster collaborative efforts and innovation.
  • Refinement: Continuously improving and updating knowledge to keep it relevant in the ever evolving business environment.
  • Creation: Encouraging the generation of new insights and solutions that contribute to the organization’s knowledge base.

By systematically managing these elements, knowledge management not only supports day- to-day operations but also empowers strategic planning and decision-making processes across the organization.

Why is knowledge management important?

The strategic implementation of KM is crucial for companies looking to maintain knowledge equity and foster a culture of knowledge sharing. The potential benefits are substantial, impacting everything from productivity and efficiency to innovation and employee satisfaction. KM is particularly essential for decision-making processes; with good KM practices, companies can tap into relevant knowledge and expertise in real time, significantly enhancing their decision-making capabilities.

Key components of knowledge management

KM offers organizations the tools and processes to capture, distribute and effectively use invaluable knowledge. Let’s delve into the five fundamental components that constitute a robust KM strategy, each playing a crucial role in the information life cycle:

  • Knowledge creation: Encourages the formulation of new ideas and solutions, often leading to groundbreaking innovations that can be a game-changer in the market.
  • Knowledge capture: Involves gathering valuable information, both tacit and explicit, and ensuring it is accessible to those who need it. Tools like IT Glue facilitate this process through efficient documentation capabilities.
  • Knowledge sharing: A culture of shared knowledge supports an environment where ideas and information are freely distributed among team members, enhancing collaborative efforts.
  • Knowledge storage: Effective storage systems ensure that valuable corporate information is secured and retrievable whenever required, a cornerstone feature of IT Glue.
  • Knowledge transfer: Effective KM practices facilitate the flow of knowledge from more to less experienced employees, preserving critical operational insights regardless of personnel changes.

Integrating these key components into your organizational strategy can transform how knowledge is handled within your business, leading to improved efficiency, innovation and competitive advantage. IT Glue provides a comprehensive platform, which contains various resources supporting all aspects of KM, from creation and capture to sharing, storage and transfer. By leveraging such tools, businesses can enhance their knowledge management practices and secure their position as leaders in the knowledge-driven economy

Benefits of knowledge management

KM stands as a beacon in the modern business landscape, guiding organizations towards optimal operational efficiency and innovation. The ability to manage, store and disseminate information effectively not only empowers employees but also enhances overall organizational agility. In this segment, we delve into the core benefits of implementing robust KM practices that can transform how a business operates and competes in a knowledge-driven economy. Benefits of KM are:

  • Improved decision-making: By providing access to a wealth of information and expert insights, KM enables informed and effective decision-making.
  • Accelerated innovation: KM practices nurture an environment of innovation by making a wealth of knowledge readily available to those who can use it to foster new ideas and solutions.
  • Enhanced collaboration: Breaking down silos, KM encourages a more collaborative environment that can lead to improved processes and outputs.
  • Reduced knowledge loss: Organizations face significant risks from knowledge loss due to employee turnover; KM practices help mitigate these losses.

The strategic implementation of knowledge management practices offers a pathway to enhanced decision-making, spurred innovation, seamless collaboration and significantly reduced knowledge loss. Each of these benefits contributes to a stronger, more resilient organization that can adapt to changes and capitalize on opportunities swiftly. By investing in KM, companies not only safeguard their intellectual capital but also enhance their capability to thrive in a competitive business environment.

Knowledge management best practices

KM is an essential strategy for organizations aiming to preserve, enhance and utilize their intellectual capital. Implementing effective KM practices not only optimizes these processes but also fosters a culture of sustained growth and innovation. This guide outlines several best practices that can help any organization achieve its KM objectives effectively. They include:

  • Cultivating a knowledge-sharing culture: Encourage an organizational culture that embraces continuous learning and knowledge exchange.
  • Investing in robust KM systems: Platforms like IT Glue can dramatically enhance the ability to capture, store and retrieve knowledge, making it an invaluable tool for any knowledge-driven organization.
  • Continuous training and support: Equip your team with the skills and tools they need to contribute to your KM system effectively.
  • Clear processes and guidelines: Establish and maintain clear protocols for knowledge management within your organization.

Adopting these best practices can transform an organization’s approach to knowledge management, turning it into a key strategic asset that drives innovation, efficiency and competitive advantage. By cultivating a supportive culture, investing in the right tools, providing ongoing training and establishing clear guidelines, organizations can ensure that their knowledge management efforts are successful and sustainable.

Why should businesses consider IT Glue?

IT Glue’s knowledge management platform offers an array of features that streamline and secure the processes of knowledge capture, management and sharing. With robust integration options and a user friendly interface, IT Glue ensures that your knowledge assets are organized and accessible to improve operational efficiency and decision-making processes.

Harness knowledge for success with IT Glue

The strategic application of knowledge management can transform an organization’s internal structure and market approach, turning information into a powerful asset that drives growth, innovation and continuous improvement. With IT Glue, businesses have the tools at their fingertips to harness this potential fully.

To learn more about how IT Glue can streamline your knowledge management efforts, have a look at the product features.

Looking for a live demonstration? Book a demo today and get to know about knowledge management in just 30 minutes!

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Relationship Mapping: Get a Comprehensive Understanding of IT Environments https://www.itglue.com/blog/relationship-mapping/ Fri, 14 Oct 2022 20:02:18 +0000 https://www.itglue.com/?p=12382 With modern-day IT environments becoming increasingly complex, understanding the relationships between various components often poses a great challenge for IT professionals. You can understand the entirety of an IT environment only if you have instant access to everything, and this is where relationship mapping comes in. In this blog, we’ll explore the significance of relationship […]

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With modern-day IT environments becoming increasingly complex, understanding the relationships between various components often poses a great challenge for IT professionals. You can understand the entirety of an IT environment only if you have instant access to everything, and this is where relationship mapping comes in.

In this blog, we’ll explore the significance of relationship mapping in today’s complex IT environments and how you can use it for effective information management.

What is relationship mapping?

Relationship mapping refers to how individual components are related to each other in an IT infrastructure. Here, you need to understand the logical relationships between various assets and their documentation. For instance, when you relate components like hardware devices and their configuration documents, you can instantly access the documents while working on understanding the hardware devices. Similarly, you can have easy access to all the information you need and use them whenever you want through relationship mapping.

What is the role of relationship mapping?

To start creating relationship mapping, you need to have building blocks. This includes your company’s technology assets such as desktops, servers, other infrastructure hardware and software applications.

You also need to build relationships with the rest of your IT, including software applications installed on devices, passwords to access the devices, and knowledge and how-to guides for troubleshooting the devices. This is what relationship mapping does. By linking your assets with the rest of your IT, you can have access to critical information at your fingertips.

In large organizations with complex IT environments, information often gets buried and can be extremely difficult to locate. Even when you have sophisticated documentation with multiple layers, relationship mapping makes everything easier to understand since you aren’t bouncing between different tools to find that one piece of information you need.

Why is relationship mapping important?

The most important aspect of relationship mapping is to provide you with a full picture of your clients’ IT environments. You can enter all assets in your relationship mapping tool and create logical, two-way relationships between them. Following that, you can check the dependencies and relationships for a single IT component. With this, you can easily understand what’s at stake whenever a new problem is identified within the network.

This logical structure ensures better information management and drives performance as a result. In other words, relationship mapping provides you with actionable insights into your IT assets and helps you connect the dots in the asset management process.

What are the benefits of relationship mapping?

The biggest benefit of relationship mapping is that it provides instant access to critical information even if you have a complex IT infrastructure. This drives performance and helps you make informed decisions. You can identify issues instantly and troubleshoot them or incorporate temporary fixes until a permanent solution is found.

Here is a list of reasons why relationship mapping is extremely important in IT environments.

Reduces research time

Let’s face it. Sifting through multiple Excel sheets or Word documents to gather information about a single endpoint isn’t just tedious but practically impossible in today’s age of complex networks. When you have a map of logical relationships between various pieces of information, you won’t have to search for everything manually. From ticket resolutions to project management, technicians save a significant amount of time every day with relationship mapping.

Accelerates troubleshooting

IT professionals receive tickets every day about workstations not functioning well. Also, MSP technicians receive complaints from their clients about issues in multiple workstations. When working on these fixes, you may need access to various information, including vendor info, hardware details, passwords, SOPs, etc. Imagine trying to search for this information through huge volumes of unstructured documentation. Sounds daunting, doesn’t it?

With relationship mapping, you can instantly isolate information pertaining to a specific device and get preliminary information like connected devices, software installed, firewalls, etc. This accelerates troubleshooting and helps resolve complicated issues instantly.

Promotes self-service culture

Having a documentation tool with relationship mapping features is a great way to empower your technicians. When technicians understand the relationships between various elements in the network, they can work on their own without waiting for information from multiple sources.

This helps you avoid issues arising from simple forgetfulness or misplaced information. With all the relevant information about the IT infrastructure right at their fingertips, technicians can be more independent and proceed to resolve issues on their own more confidently.

Comprehensive understanding of your IT environment

In many complex IT infrastructures, relevant information can get buried deep inside the environment without the possibility of instant access. As a result, network administrators have to painstakingly go through various documents and Excel sheets just to get an understanding of their network.

You can overcome this with a powerful documentation tool that has relationship mapping capabilities. By getting instant access to related items in your IT environment, you can get a complete understanding of how your devices are connected and how they interact with each other.

Speeds up onboarding

When onboarding a new technician to your team, you need to provide them with a full understanding of the devices you manage. However, providing a manual overview of the entire infrastructure can be overwhelming. Relationship mapping can come in handy during the onboarding process. By providing a glimpse of all the components in the network with the help of a relationship map, you can speed up your onboarding process and get your technicians accustomed to their work in no time.

What are relationship mapping tools?

Relationship mapping tools are software solutions that help you map relationships between assets, giving you a full picture of your clients’ IT environments. In a relationship mapping tool, you can enter all your assets and create two-way relationships between them. This provides you with information on the dependencies and relationships for all IT components.

When you get the relationship information between your assets through a relationship mapping solution, you can easily understand what’s at stake if you encounter a problem within your IT infrastructure. Robust tools like IT Glue also provide you with a logical structure to manage your information better. This drives performance and helps you identify permanent solutions whenever a new issue is encountered.

Understand IT relationships with IT Glue

IT Glue is a robust documentation solution that comes with powerful relationship mapping capabilities. You can link related items together and view all the required information anytime at your fingertips. IT Glue also helps you understand relationships between various elements of your documentation, dramatically reduces research time, and provides instant peripheral vision and awareness. You can also build new relationships on the fly to continuously deepen and improve the resolution of your documentation.

IT Glue’s SOC 2-compliant documentation platform also comes packed with an immutable audit trail, network discovery, diagramming and more. All these features are fully integrated and linked with all your documentation.

To learn more about how IT Glue can help you understand IT relationships, request a demo of our industry-leading documentation platform.

I want a Demo!

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Document Library: Manage Information Effectively With Centralized Documentation https://www.itglue.com/blog/document-library/ Wed, 28 Sep 2022 20:44:24 +0000 https://www.itglue.com/?p=12327 Most organizations today deal with the issue of spending too much time looking for information. If you cannot locate a file right away, you have to search your computer, different backup drives, applications, emails and more. If you still cannot find it, you have to wait for the right person to get back online to […]

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Most organizations today deal with the issue of spending too much time looking for information. If you cannot locate a file right away, you have to search your computer, different backup drives, applications, emails and more. If you still cannot find it, you have to wait for the right person to get back online to locate the file. Imagine the amount of time you waste going through this process every day. This is why you need a document library in your IT infrastructure.

In this blog, we’ll discuss the different attributes of a document library and how it can help you efficiently manage critical information.

What is a document library?

A document library provides a secure way to store all the information created in your organization’s ecosystem. It provides a central repository for all workers in an organization to create, view, access and edit files from anywhere. If you are working on a specific project with your co-workers, you can use the document library to manage all the files and store information that needs to be shared with your clients or co-workers.

Why should IT teams have a document library?

In today’s world, many organizations work with hybrid teams or have teams scattered across different parts of the world. Managing these teams without a centralized document library is extremely inefficient and could lead to a lot of problems. Imagine sharing files as email attachments with different stakeholders and getting them back with various edits. The sheer number of file versions and duplicates could overwhelm you. This is why you need a document library.

With a document library, you have a place to store all your files and access them any time you want. You don’t have to worry about creating different versions of the same file or recovering the original file. Most importantly, you don’t have to worry about data security.

What are the benefits of a document library?

Some of the key benefits of a document library are:

  • Reduces clutter: A document library can be used to reduce information clutter in your organization. You don’t want random files hanging around in different locations like email inboxes, computers and backup drives. With effective file management in a document library, you can easily overcome this information clutter.
  • Structured information management: A document library provides structure to the information you store in it. This structured information is easily accessible to all stakeholders, and they can use any device to gather the required information.
  • Enhances security: The information you store in your document library is much more secure than email attachments. Due to this, you and your team members can work in a secure environment without worrying about information theft.
  • Saves time: Since the information is stored in a structured, clutter-free environment, you can locate your documents easily. Robust tools like IT Glue can cave at least 50% of your time when it comes to storing and accessing critical information.
  • Boosts collaboration: The most important reason for having a document library is to collaborate with your team members. Anyone with access to the library can locate your documents and make the required edits without waiting for their turn. This ensures seamless collaboration with team members in multiple locations.

Document library and knowledge management

Organizations typically have their resources scattered across various tools and platforms. For instance, you may have your files stored on different hard drives, computers, applications and more. With the help of a document library, you can create a centralized platform that can bring all critical information together.

The information you manage with the help of a document library can be used to serve different types of users, including your clients, vendors and employees. By effectively managing all your document-based deliverables, you can preserve your organizational knowledge in the most efficient way possible.

Let’s say you have a business audit coming up. If you cannot locate the correct documentation, it could put your business operations in serious jeopardy. Besides being able to locate the right documents, you will also have the latest versions along with the right information architecture.

Using a document library

The idea behind a document library is to have a unified platform for employees to access whenever they need information. You can use your document library to store various types of files, including Word documents, Excel documents, PDFs, infographics, presentations, charts, policies, procedures and more.

You need a robust document library that can manage all your information needs. Documentation solutions like IT Glue come with a document library by default. You can add files to your document library or create new libraries based on your requirements.

There are many situations where a document library can come in handy. For instance, let’s say you are working on a legacy device in your client’s IT environment. You can look up the device code in the document library that has all the system information of your client. Also, when working on complex tasks, you can use a document library to check SOPs or how-to guides.

Features to look for in a document library

The features you find in a document library may vary from one tool to another. However, make sure you have the following set of features to make the most out of your document library.

  • Relationship mapping: You can use this feature to create relationships between various documents you create. When using a specific file, you will be prompted with a list of related files that you may want to check. This feature simplifies the complex task of finding relevant information that the user may not even know exists.
  • Integrations: When your documentation library integrates with multiple tools, you can leverage them all to gather all relevant information in a unified platform. This is extremely important if you have multiple tools and applications that gather data in your environment.
  • Access control: You don’t want your document library to be accessed by everyone in your organization. You need to have the access control feature to determine who can access the information. Using this feature, you can also assign different levels of access to your users.
  • Audit trail: This helps you easily track who has recently accessed a document and made changes to it. With this information, you no longer have to wonder about the edits made to your critical documents. This increases accountability among your peers and makes them access the information only when it is required.
  • Sharing functions: Your document library should come with sharing functions to quickly send information to specific people in your organization. This ensures seamless transfer of information among stakeholders working on a file.

Information management with IT Glue document library

IT Glue is an award-winning documentation solution that comes with a robust document library. You can create and manage all kinds of documents in this library. IT Glue also comes with powerful features that facilitate easy knowledge sharing with your team members and allows you to relate them with the rest of your documentation.

IT Glue’s SOC 2-compliant documentation platform also comes packed with an immutable audit trail, network discovery, diagramming and more. All these features are fully integrated and linked with all your documentation.

To learn more about how IT Glue can help you with information management, request a demo of our industry-leading documentation platform.

I want a Demo!

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Knowledge Sharing: Developing a Culture of Learning and Open Communication https://www.itglue.com/blog/knowledge-sharing/ Fri, 26 Aug 2022 00:55:39 +0000 https://www.itglue.com/?p=12228 In an organizational setup, the power of knowledge can be leveraged only when it is shared effectively. In many cases, crucial knowledge stays only with a select few, and when they leave the organization, so does the knowledge. However, it doesn’t have to be this way. By creating a culture of knowledge sharing, you can […]

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In an organizational setup, the power of knowledge can be leveraged only when it is shared effectively. In many cases, crucial knowledge stays only with a select few, and when they leave the organization, so does the knowledge. However, it doesn’t have to be this way. By creating a culture of knowledge sharing, you can manage your organizational knowledge properly and give your people the right platform to access it.

In this blog, we shall explore the importance of knowledge sharing and how you can promote it efficiently across your organization with the right strategies.

What is meant by knowledge sharing?

Knowledge sharing refers to the process of transferring critical information from one person to another within an organization. Organizations must create spaces for open communication and encourage a healthy exchange of ideas. In addition to creating a culture of knowledge sharing, companies should also invest in a technological infrastructure that supports sharing of critical knowledge.

What is the purpose of knowledge sharing?

The purpose of knowledge sharing is to leverage the power of collective knowledge possessed by your team. You can use this to run your operations smoothly and effectively without any issues. Most importantly, knowledge sharing puts a stop to hoarding of valuable information that may be required to make some timely decisions.

What is the importance of knowledge sharing?

Knowledge sharing focuses on breaking down information silos in an organization and ensuring the easy availability of all tacit (know-how) knowledge. Since tacit knowledge comes from hands-on experience, most organizations lose it when their key employees leave. When you have a strong process that focuses on knowledge sharing, you can preserve your organizational knowledge and use it for future growth.

Moreover, organizations that practice a culture of knowledge sharing typically witness higher productivity, better employee engagement and better team morale. If you neglect knowledge sharing, your employees won’t always have the right information when they need to access it. As a result, your organization might lose a lot of productive man hours on redundant information searches.

What is an example of knowledge sharing?

Let’s say you are working on installing a new software asset in your IT infrastructure, and you encounter a potential security issue. You immediately flag it down and write a quick note on the security issue. If there is a common knowledge base in your organization, you can add this update and let other members of your team know about this issue.

Similar examples of knowledge sharing are quite common in various everyday operations. In the above example, the issue wouldn’t have been known to other team members if there was no channel to share the tacit knowledge. If this information is shared in, say, a Slack channel, there’s no easy way for someone to access it at a later date. Knowledge sharing is only optimized when it’s shared across the team and across time by making it easy to find, whenever needed, and by whoever needs it.

What are the benefits of knowledge sharing?

Fostering a culture of knowledge sharing helps your team members become experts. This helps organizations save money on training, enhance efficiency, streamline operations and more. In addition, you can also witness the following benefits when you promote knowledge sharing.

Promote organizational alignment

In a good knowledge-based system, everything properly aligns with each other. When knowledge is widely shared, everyone understands what is going on. This helps your team members collaborate better and share their workloads whenever necessary.

Improve processes and productivity

When all your employees are well-informed and up to date, it naturally improves the quality of your processes. Well-informed employees can make timely decisions that can streamline your operations. As a result, your productivity will improve significantly.

Standard process for knowledge collection, accessibility and retention

In an organization with a culture of knowledge sharing, there will be a standardized process for knowledge collection, accessibility and retention. Nothing will be left to chance here. Even if a key employee leaves the job, you don’t lose their knowledge and expertise.

Create better experience for your customers

The benefits of knowledge sharing are not just limited to your employees. Your customers can also witness these benefits to a great extent. For instance, well-informed customer support staff can get things done quickly and reduce the response time for new customer tickets. As a result, your customers can get their issues resolved at a much faster rate.

Save money and resources

Training new employees can be quite costly and resource intensive. With effective knowledge-sharing processes, you can get your employees trained faster and get them productive much quicker, saving money and resources as a result.

Employee growth and satisfaction

Knowledge sharing gives a chance for your employees to learn new things and grow in their existing job roles. When your employees are empowered to do new things, they take pride and gain more satisfaction in their work.

How do you promote knowledge sharing?

Considering the endless benefits of knowledge sharing, you need to incorporate the right system in your organization to promote it. Here is a list of ways you can promote and encourage effective knowledge sharing in your company.

Foster a culture of sharing knowledge

In an organization where every team works in silos, information sharing can be quite difficult to attain. As a result, valuable knowledge is shared only with close associates and peers. You need to dismantle your information silos and make knowledge sharing a part of your organization’s value. Employees sharing valuable knowledge should also be rewarded.

Reduce communication barriers

Communication plays a vital role in promoting knowledge sharing. When employees’ new ideas are not heard, they might feel detached from their work. This could affect your overall productivity as well. You can overcome this by reducing communication barriers. For instance, you can create a centralized platform for various departments to share their expertise.

Establish knowledge-sharing roles and processes

You can also promote knowledge sharing by creating specific roles and processes. For instance, a knowledge manager in a team can be responsible for capturing, managing, processing and sharing information. Similarly, there should also be standard processes for all aspects of knowledge sharing and accessibility.

Encourage and reward knowledge-sharing activities

When you incentivize knowledge sharing with various rewards, you could achieve your goals much quicker. Many employees respond positively to rewards, and they would love to be recognized for their contributions. Something as simple as giving them a shoutout can go a long way in encouraging knowledge-sharing behavior.

Acknowledge and address barriers to knowledge sharing

Issues cannot be solved unless they are identified first. If you find knowledge sharing to be ineffective in your team, conduct thorough research on the barriers preventing it. Once you have identified the barriers, you can work toward eliminating them.

Utilize knowledge-sharing tools

Knowledge sharing doesn’t have to be a boring, manual process. There are sophisticated documentation tools that can double as knowledge-sharing tools and help you achieve your goals. Make sure you choose the right tool and make the most out of it.

What is a knowledge-sharing tool?

A knowledge-sharing tool provides a centralized hub for sharing all the required information. You can use it to share an array of organizational information ranging from how-to guides to critical process documentation.

The tool should come with a simple and easy-to-use interface. It should have a reliable search function and allow you to identify related items. Most importantly, it should integrate with popular tools in the market and allow you to sync all your documentation within a single point of view.

When you have the right tool with the right functionalities, knowledge sharing and knowledge management become an easy affair.

Knowledge sharing and collaboration with IT Glue

IT Glue is an award-winning documentation solution with powerful knowledge management capabilities. With its powerful features, IT Glue facilitates easy knowledge sharing with your team members and allows you to relate them with the rest of your documentation.

IT Glue’s SOC 2-compliant documentation platform also comes packed with an immutable audit trail, network discovery, diagramming and more. All these features are fully integrated and linked with all your documentation.

To learn more about how IT Glue can help you with knowledge sharing, request a demo of our industry-leading documentation platform.

I want a Demo!

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How to Prevent Knowledge Loss Caused by the Great Resignation https://www.itglue.com/blog/how-to-prevent-knowledge-loss-caused-by-the-great-resignation/ Mon, 21 Mar 2022 20:32:06 +0000 https://www.itglue.com/?post_type=blog_posts&p=11559 The Great Resignation is expected to continue for the better part of 2022, and it has already affected businesses in many ways. From low productivity to poor morale, the impact is quite severe. However, nothing is more serious than the knowledge loss that resulted from it. In this blog, we'll explore the impact of knowledge loss from an IT perspective and how you can overcome it with smart documentation.

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The Great Resignation is expected to continue for the better part of 2022, and it has already affected businesses in many ways. From low productivity to poor morale, the impact is quite severe. However, nothing is more serious than the knowledge loss that resulted from it. In this blog, we’ll explore the impact of knowledge loss from an IT perspective and how you can overcome it with smart documentation.

Why is knowledge loss a serious concern?

Knowledge loss has always been a byproduct of employee turnover. Organizations in certain industries are always prepared for this eventuality. For instance, fast-food chains always have a high turnover rate compared to other industries. These organizations prefer to have their institutional knowledge codified rather than just letting it reside in their employees’ heads.

Most organizations, however, don’t experience massive employee turnover at the same time. Due to this, they don’t incorporate a robust system in place to document their institutional knowledge. Everything from processes to passwords typically remains with certain key employees.

When one of these key employees leaves the organization, it puts day-to-day operations in jeopardy. Besides affecting the workflow, it also puts additional pressure on existing employees. Overworked team members may get dissatisfied very soon, and this may eventually result in massive turnover across the whole organization.

Unstructured information that is hard to locate is also a serious issue. What good is documentation if you don’t know where to find the documented information? For instance, every client-facing organization documents its SSL information, and this information is accessible to only a few key employees. However, if no one knows where to locate this information after these key employees depart, it presents a serious problem. This is why losing institutional knowledge will always be problematic for organizations.

4 ways IT Glue can eliminate knowledge loss

Certain losses associated with employee attrition are inevitable. For instance, the cost of replacing a departed employee cannot be avoided. However, you can prevent knowledge loss to a great extent. Documentation holds the key to that. With the power of documentation, you might even learn to operate efficiently with fewer people.

An automated documentation tool like IT Glue can help you create knowledge bases in your IT infrastructure and ensure operational efficiency even with fewer resources. Here are four simple ways by which IT Glue can help you achieve that.

  • Leverage the power of smart documentation: Smart documentation can help your team become more self-reliant by decreasing the dependency on individual team members. IT Glue can help you plan ahead and always be prepared to deal with challenging scenarios. Most importantly, you can create consistency across the whole organization. When you have a well-documented and standardized process, your team members and your clients won’t have to suffer due to the departure of a single team member.
  • Use automation to boost efficiency: Automation can help boost efficiency by allowing your team to manage more service requests with fewer technicians. In addition to boosting efficiency, automation can also reduce inaccuracies in your documentation process. IT Glue’s automated documentation capabilities can help remove error-prone manual documentation processes in your IT environment. This can lower costs, boost productivity, improve service quality and help you gain a competitive advantage.
  • Create powerful knowledge bases and SOPs: To reduce dependency on a single team member, you must make processes repeatable. You can achieve this by creating powerful knowledge bases and standard operating procedures in IT Glue. Here, you can embed diagrams and link your articles easily with the rest of your documentation. Moreover, IT Glue is integrated with Microsoft Word and Lucidchart to allow for Word and .csv imports. When you have a step-by-step process for every task, your technicians’ outcomes will always be consistent, which helps keep your team on point.
  • Create a central hub for your data with IT Glue: With IT Glue, you can create a central hub for all your data and processes. This promotes collaborative documentation with all your team members. As a result, you can reduce dependency on individual team members. Our SOC 2 Type II compliant documentation platform features an immutable audit trail, multifactor authentication and next-generation password management engine, all of which are fully integrated and linked with all your documentation. It also ensures that your data is accessible to the right person only and eliminates the chances of a data breach.

Conclusion

Knowledge loss can have serious consequences in the business world. From strategic misalignment of your workforce to declining work quantity or quality, it can directly affect the growth of an organization. The best way you can avoid this is by documenting all mission-critical information including institutional knowledge, processes, passwords, SOPs and more.

When you have everything properly documented with the help of a powerful tool like IT Glue, you no longer have to worry about the knowledge loss caused by employee attrition. This will help you become more resilient even when faced with an adversity like The Great Resignation.

To learn more about how to eliminate knowledge loss with IT Glue, request a demo.

Get your demo here!

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Document Collaboration: Drive Results With Real-Time Document Editing https://www.itglue.com/blog/document-collaboration/ Wed, 22 Dec 2021 18:03:07 +0000 https://www.itglue.com/?post_type=blog_posts&p=11202 Collaboration is the need of the hour in today’s business world. Business processes and workflows cannot afford any delays and bottlenecks in today’s environment just because someone does not have access to the right information. The best way to address this issue is through documentation collaboration. Considering the speed at which businesses operate today, collaboration can play a huge role in business productivity, profitability and growth.

In this blog, we'll discuss how document collaboration works and why it is a critical factor in today’s competitive business world.

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Collaboration is the need of the hour in today’s business world. Business processes and workflows cannot afford any delays and bottlenecks in today’s environment just because someone does not have access to the right information. The best way to address this issue is through documentation collaboration. Considering the speed at which businesses operate today, collaboration can play a huge role in business productivity, profitability and growth.

In this blog, we’ll discuss how document collaboration works and why it is a critical factor in today’s competitive business world.

What is document collaboration?

Document collaboration came into existence due to the need for real-time access to concurrent work in different places across the globe. It is a process that enables real-time collaborating, editing and sharing of documents between multiple parties who could be in different places around the world.

With the help of modern tools, you can eliminate the collaboration challenges and enable multiple people to work on a single file. This is also known by different names such as documentation collaboration, collaborative editing, collaborative documentation, etc. One of the key aspects of document collaboration is that it eliminates the need for unnecessary paper trials, email chains and overwriting of the original documentation.

How does document collaboration work?

It starts with the creation of a collaborative document, which is typically a file you can create on an online platform. Following this, you need to share this with other stakeholders to edit. The main objective of this collaboration is to have a final version that has input from all relevant stakeholders. The document could be in the form of a Word document, spreadsheet, PDF, videos, etc.

The tools designed to facilitate collaborative work are called groupware. These tools comprise collaborative technology with features like shared workspace, customizable user groups, document management, workflow routing, third-party app integration and more. These features allow for group problem solving and ensure a more intuitive workflow.

What is the purpose of document collaboration?

Document collaboration can change the way you work. The main purpose is to achieve efficiency and make life easier for those working on complicated projects. Imagine working with something like a whiteboard, but better. Here, all members have access to edit and share their thoughts on the project you are working on. It eliminates the need for rewriting and overwriting since changes can be in made real-time and for everyone to see. The advantage is you don’t need any expensive software purchases to perform document collaboration.

Now let’s see how document collaboration tools can significantly simplify the way you work with your peers.

What are document collaboration tools?

In the past, collaboration happened on whiteboards and notebooks. Thankfully, those days are way behind us. We live in an era where online tools allow us to collaborate with our teammates from anywhere, anytime. There is no need for everyone to be present in the same room or even present at the same time.

A document collaboration tool can make this happen by providing access to all members of the team. Besides allowing users to edit the document, the tool also stores all the files within its documentation ecosystem. You don’t have to worry about misplaced documents as long as you have the right document name.

Some examples of document collaboration tools include Google Docs, Microsoft 365, Dropbox, etc. These solutions are universally available and easy to use. IT Glue also comes with a documentation collaboration feature that allows all your technicians to access the required information from anywhere.

What do collaboration tools allow teammates to do?

When all your teammates have access to a documentation collaboration tool, they can view, edit, store and share any information within the platform. This helps them coordinate better and have instant access to all information. Since one team member doesn’t have to wait for another team member to access the information stored, it boosts productivity significantly.

For instance, let’s assume you are using IT Glue for your documentation. Once incorporated, your technicians can use the platform anytime and get the information they require to solve a problem. Since IT Glue is integrated with various RMM and PSA tools, you don’t have to jump platforms to access information and provide the required fixes.

What are the benefits of using collaboration tools?

Besides reducing manual paperwork, documentation collaboration can benefit organizations in a number of ways. Some of these benefits include:

  • Higher productivity

  • Better structure and organization

  • Increased collaboration within a team

  • Higher security for all documents

  • Lower storage costs for documents

What are document collaboration best practices?

Although document collaboration has a range of benefits, it also presents some challenges to organizations. For instance, easy access to everyone in a team can mean endless edits to files. To circumvent these challenges, we have come up with some documentation collaboration best practices to ensure controlled collaboration. Let’s take a look at them one by one.

Definitive roles

All members with access to documents must have specific roles. This ensures better security and organization. Some of the definitive roles to be included in collaboration are as follows:

  • Owner — One person in charge of decision-making and one responsible party.
  • Writers — Those in charge of content creation.
  • Editors — Those in charge of editing created content and quality control.
  • Commentators — Those who are able to comment and suggest on documentation, but without writing or editing capabilities. 
  • Readers — Those with viewer access to the document.

Workflow deadlines

You need to set a clear timeframe to get work done on time. With a deadline for drafting and editing, you can prevent endless edits to all your critical documents.

Effective communication

When working towards a common goal with your team members, communication should be of high priority.

  • Real-time communication — Messaging and real-time communication should be highly encouraged.

  • Document edits — All edits should have relevant comments for maximum transparency.

Version tracking

Most documentation collaboration tools have a version tracking facility to identify the changes made to a document. Without this, you won’t know who has made the edits and when. This is especially important if your documents are of a sensitive nature.

Access management

Access to critical documents must be provided in a controlled manner. There should be a specific time period after which access to documents should be revoked for all non-owners. You need to do this to avoid errors and unnecessary modifications in the documents.

IT documentation collaboration with IT Glue

IT Glue is an industry-leading documentation tool that is built with collaboration in mind. Its powerful documentation feature allows users to build collaborative documents including security policies, guidelines, procedures, system information and more. You can share these documents with your clients and team members anytime to gather their input.

IT Glue’s SOC 2-compliant documentation platform features an immutable audit trail, multifactor authentication and next-generation password management engine. These features are fully integrated and linked with all your documentation.

To learn more about how IT Glue can help you with documentation collaboration, request a demo.

Request Demo Here!

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3 Ways IT Glue Helps You Beat the Forgetting Curve https://www.itglue.com/blog/it-glue-beat-forgetting-curve/ Tue, 21 Jan 2020 16:55:46 +0000 https://www.itglue.com/?post_type=blog_posts&p=7096 Moving a short-term memory into the long-term bank takes time and effort that you probably don’t have. Don’t worry, IT Glue has your back.

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The human brain is not an infallible machine. It’s prone to a plethora of psychological quirks and biases, and worst of all, it’s a victim of the Forgetting Curve. Just as the name implies, the curve illustrates the speed at which information fades into the recesses of the mind, before ultimately disappearing forever.

One study demonstrated that within 24 hours, 50-80% of new information is forgotten if the information isn’t engaged with (contemplated or used).1 By day 30, only 2-3% is remembered—a mere fraction.1 At first this seems like a shortcoming of human cognition, but one that’s developed to help us cope with the flood of useless information we’re faced with on a daily basis. By not engaging with a piece of information, you’re telling your brain that it’s not a pertinent detail that needs to be retained. More hardware can be added to a server to store more information, but unfortunately, not the brain.

Forgetfulness is the enemy of process, efficiency, and security. Your savior? Documentation. IT Glue has a host of features that more than compensate for the Forgetting Curve.

1. Relationship Mapping

Feature: Related Items

Information rarely exists in isolation, and more likely exists within a web of relevant connections. Whether it’s your information, or a client’s information, effective documentation requires the ability to make the connections between relevant pieces of information.

Relationship mapping within IT Glue involves creating logical, two-way connections between pieces of information (assets), be they vendors, licences, network devices, contacts, domains, passwords, standard operating procedures, or licenses.

Establishing the relationships between assets early on means you don’t have to remember the minute details such as what router connects to which switch, and which switch is connected to which workstation. It’s all displayed within the “Related Items” section, giving you access to relevant information for a given task, and facilitating the flow of work.

Knowledge Base Article

2. Compartmentalization/Categorization)

Feature: Tags

Just like how you might compartmentalize your feelings and emotions, IT Glue allows you to compartmentalize information. Don’t go confusing this with the Related Fields feature, though. Tags allow you to designate a “kind” of information. Essentially, what this does is group assets, organizations, and users so you don’t have to remember what belongs together. This is a helpful feature in many scenarios, for example if you’d like to group a set of related licenses, procedures, devices, or passwords together and establish two-way links between all of them, the tag feature will get this done for you.

Knowledge Base Article

3. Reminders

Feature: Workflows

Things will be top of mind, only when they need to be. Flag types trigger predefined workflows that tell you when something needs to happen, and the specific steps to get it done. You can set workflows to be triggered by an event, or schedule them to take place. Not only does this let you establish a process that works and not have to remember all the individual steps, it also ensures that you don’t have to remember to pass this knowledge onto new techs during their onboarding.

Triggers can be when a Document is published/updated, when a Flag is added/updated/removed, or when a Password is added/updated, when a Domain, SSL, Configuration, or Flexible Asset is set to expire. Established workflows ensure that the person responsible for an action, automatically knows when and how to do it.

Knowledge Base Article

IT Glue’s award-winning documentation platform allows for efficient storage and retrieval of all the documentation you need to help managed service providers increase efficiency. Watch a demo today!

Yes, sign me up for a demo!

1 https://uwaterloo.ca/campus-wellness/curve-forgetting

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Feature Release: Knowledge Base https://www.itglue.com/blog/feature-release-knowledge-base/ Mon, 05 Dec 2016 13:30:00 +0000 https://www.itglue.com/blog/feature-release-knowledge-base/ Did you know that IT Glue™ has an excellent knowledge base, full of articles with great tips to make your IT Glue experience better? This amazing feature used to be for partners only, but now it's open to the public.

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Did you know that IT Glue™ has an excellent knowledge base, full of articles with great tips to make your IT Glue experience better? This amazing feature used to be for partners only, but now it’s open to the public.

The IT Glue Knowledge Base (KB) is produced by our team of technical writers and product staff, with each article providing detail on a wide variety of subjects. The KB was designed to serve you, the IT Glue partner, by providing a reference resource outlining how to get the most out of your IT Glue experience. There are going to be tips in the Knowledge Base that you probably haven’t thought of yet.

Here’s a quick peek at what you can find in our KB:

  • Service Desk
  • Client Onboarding
  • Import and Export
  • Integrations
  • Documentation Guide
  • Billing and Plans
  • Users and Groups
  • Managing PSA Data
  • and much more

If you haven’t seen the Knowledge Base yet, be sure to check out this amazing resource; it’s a must for any IT Glue user. And we’re adding new articles all the time, nearly 150 of them to this point, so if you haven’t seen it lately, it’s worth taking another look.

Is there something that you’d like to see in our Knowledge Base? Feel free to let us know. We often write articles in response to partner queries.

Plus, don’t forget about our excellent Partner Success team. If you’re new to IT Glue and haven’t talked to them yet, call us to book an appointment and they will walk you through the process of setting up IT Glue, and show you some amazing features you might not be aware of.

Visit the Knowledge Base to learn more.


What thousands of MSPs have come to discover is that IT Glue can act as a central hub for all of the information they need in order to better serve their clients and staff. IT Glue also allows businesses to get the information out of their team’s heads and store it in a place where everyone in the organization can easily access it. We are a proven, best practices-driven IT documentation platform packed with features designed to help you maximize efficiency.

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