Driving Agility: Process Documentation
BY IT GLUE | July 03, 2020
We’re on part three of the Driving Agility blog series, where key features are highlighted for their ability to make your organization more nimble in the face of trials and tribulations. Missed the first two? Check them out here and here. Next up: process documentation.
What is process documentation?
As the name suggests, this entails establishing and explaining the steps of a routine task or project. A seemingly obvious piece of advice, but the one that often goes by the wayside, and isn’t done using tools and features that make process documentation work for you.
IT Glue is perfect for documenting IT environments, and likewise many of it’s integrations and native features lend themselves well to process documentation. Here are just a few:
IT Glue Checklists: Checklists are not new, but they’ll never fall out of fashion. Our checklists let you establish templates for routine tasks, such as onboarding a new client, or setting up a new workstation, and even sends notifications when items in a checklist are assigned to team members.
IT Glue Documents: Part of IT Glue’s core assets, Documents is the perfect place for Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), troubleshooting guides or even internal policy manuals.
Office Cloud Editor: IT Glue’s integration with Office 365 is unique. This integration lets you open, edit and save Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents right within the IT Glue interface. This means you don’t have to toggle back and forth between applications, and documents can be saved and related to specific clients, servers, workstations, or wherever it makes the most sense. Co-authoring is even possible through this integration.
Word of advice: File naming conventions are everything. If your file names are inconsistent searching for documents will take twice as long. Use file names that are intuitive, and use abbreviations so they’re more concise.
Scenario 1: Family Emergency
Your Lead Technician’s dog is going into labor and has to unexpectedly go on leave. This seasoned employee is your go-to person for nearly everything—familiar with every nook and cranny of the business. It just so happens that on this day, you’re also onboarding a whale of a client, including an onsite visit to reconfigure portions of the IT environment and ensure the entire network is accurately documented. You send out your only alternative: the new hire. Luckily, there’s an IT Glue checklist that includes all the items that need to be checked for the first in person meeting, including forms that need to be filled out, the key points of contact they need to shake hands with, and which new applications need to be gone over. Reconfiguring to optimize how the network operates follows best practices established within your company, which are laid out in an SOP, and as a back up, the junior tech can reference how other clients have been set up in IT Glue, using the IT Glue mobile app.
Scenario 2: Application Pivot
Imagine that you’ve heavily used Office 365 to store client information in the past, but it’s gotten to the point where using a documentation platform is necessary to keep everything organized and accessible. In various word documents and spreadsheets there are invoices, past communications, SOPs, troubleshooting how to’s, contact information, or even just notes about their network configuration. You don’t want to transfer all this information over to IT Glue since much of it is out of date, and you’ve used Network Glue to automatically discover, document and diagram their IT environment, but also don’t want to leave it hanging. Through the IT Glue integration with Office 365, you can store these documents right within your IT Glue documentation, ensuring that if you ever need to reference this information, or even if you see the value in keeping it up to date, you can do so within the IT Glue app. The transition from one way of working to the next is streamlined and nothing will fall through the cracks.
IT Glue is an award-winning documentation platform used by over 150,000 individuals in 50+ countries. It brings together all of your IT information, striking a perfect balance between structured and flexibility. It’s a must-have for any IT professional.
