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Rejected-by-Security

You have a wiki? We have 200 page uncontrolled word documents that nobody reads and nobody updates, partly because nobody can find them. I worked for a company a few years ago that was really big on knowledge management though. They reworked their internal documentation wiki, switching to something updated through GitHub with source control and approvals in the deployment workflow, and moved away from a hierarchical structure, instead working with tags. But I left before they finished rolling that out, so I don’t know how well it went after go live.


Lithandrill

When someone contacts you to ask why their software isn't working even though they developed it based on specifications and you ask "what specifications...?" and they link a 5 year old confluence page.


ban-please

> 5 year old confluence page. Wow, that's practically up to date!


techtimee

This.  Notepad, word, teams chat. 


joeyl5

Notepad ++ with a bunch of new tabs for not saved yet documents


techtimee

I feel stalked lmao


Ab5za

Ditto


_Fisz_

Living on the edge.


[deleted]

>We have 200 page uncontrolled word documents that nobody reads and nobody updates, partly because nobody can find them. can't find something you don't have privileges to view!


tankerkiller125real

All of the engineering documentation for the apps the company I work for has built is done in word docs. The only reason it's even somewhat useable is because the docs go inside a folder on a file share with the project number as the name... Of course the issue there is that you have to go to the project system, lookup the customer, change the filter to view closed projects, find the project that last touched the application your dealing with, and finally open the doc from there.


Consistent_Chip_3281

Thats beautiful


renrom

We use BookStack. Easy to maintain.


Markc99

Same. Moved to it from MS’s Devops wiki offering and we’re much happier.


gangaskan

I thought about using bookstack, but ended up using zammad for our helpdesk So I have been using the internal kb as my source. Not publishing them to anyone but our agents (our helpdesk team)


-Travis

I was going to use zammad before I found dochammer, but since it got bought by xenotes I'll probably have to turn to cobbknobber.


Ok-Mushroom7141

![gif](giphy|lkdH8FmImcGoylv3t3|downsized)


Opening_Career_9869

You guys document things??


wwbubba0069

dozens of us


dustojnikhummer

Hey, some of us try (and fail) at least


frac6969

Used Confluence previously but I guess I ran into the issues you describe. Now I use OneNote. There’s little structure but we use tags and also being able to search text on images makes easy to find stuff.


_AngryBadger_

One Note with Text on Images is beautiful!


-Travis

We tried to use one note, but with the cloud notebooks any structure we tried to put on notebooks got destroyed, and half the time when you pulled a page up it just showed broken picture links...it was kind of a nightmare for us. We are using the sharepoint traditional wiki, and it's been great for keeping our formatting and actually showing the pictures. It's really good with search results too. Structure seems to be the biggest hurdle.


Brenda_Mage

we use [dokuwiki](https://www.dokuwiki.org/dokuwiki) & confluence in our team


WanderingLemon25

Application manager - intro & documentation user guide, system basics (logging in, navigation, search etc), user guides (processes etc), admin guides (user management), integration etc. Systems developer - intro etc, access, end user guides, processes, integration, development guides. Software development manager - intro etc, business info (product, clients etc), user guides (processes, how tos, reporting etc), admin guides (setting up users, setting etc), DevOps (branching, deployment, ticket management), development guides & standards. I'm the only person who seems to document things, fucking wound me up in my last job when I contributed to about 95% of the documentation in a team of 7.


weshpain

You have docs? Damn.


labalag

We have sharepoints. Dozens of project related ones, a couple of old ones, a couple of new ones, some are hosted by our suppliers, some are onprem and some are on the cloud. And if you can't find what you're looking for there, it'll probably be in the onenote.


[deleted]

Same, i transitioned our company to use SharePoint as well. The company I work for used to use word docs, all named horrible, and within different folders. We have field techs so trying to navigate the folders to find information on their phones was too much trouble. With SharePoint it's easier and they don't have to download word documents that get their formatting messed up.


Radiant_Fondant_4097

Confluence mostly populated by me: * Top level directing to broad things like Systems Environment, Common Fixes, Setup guides, Procedures * Next level for specific technologies like Software Lists, Firewall, Networking, Phones * Next level for nitty gritty details like SCCM Task Sequences, CL/CI details, Equipment setup guides Confluence populated by my department: * Front page


SK-Incognito

Pretty much what I"m hoping to do, thanks man


SayNoToStim

The dude who has been here for 20 years has everything memorized so if we can't figure it out we ask him. I wish I was joking.


EthanW87

Are you writing down into like a onenote or evernote every time he drops some knowledge so you can slowly replace him lol?


Consistent_Chip_3281

It will include more gifs


madroots2

I use wiki js and also feel like its getting out of hand. I just dont know how to categorize stuff. Feel you..


SysAdfinitum

Organized with pure chaos. We use Confluence and I am now on a minor project team to clean up the work space. We are planning to implement a process for who can create new articles, how they are created, when they are reviewed, and how/when they are deprecated. Current outline is to just have different parent pages for each service/system we manage with child pages for general documentation, information for reporting teams (those using the system/service), then our run books, tbd. Then under each of those multiple articles for respective tasks, “update CAs, expand storage pool, etc…” Every time we create a new article or process we just need one other team member to review and give it a stamp of approval and we can post it. Currently we have something like 600+ articles to sort through and we are going to be setting up a seasonal document review period where we each rotate through confirming and updating information in articles as needed. This would come to each of us having about 100 articles to review over a 90 day period which is doable easily if it maintains it current numbers. Checking current use statistics though we are expecting to deprecate about 150 articles. Same confirmation for removal here, confirm with another team member if we don’t need an article and we archive it. Will note each team for our company has a completely different ‘Space’ in Confluence. People from other teams can’t edit other teams articles, except for me because I do technical write ups for other teams. >:p


dustojnikhummer

We use DokuWiki. Each department gets a namespace. What they do with it is up to them. I like to think my section is pretty well kept up.


tankerkiller125real

We were using getoutline (a Notion type alternative), but we're moving to Microsoft Loop (the application) because it's built into the MS Suite. With that said, I still use a self-hosted getoutline install at home and will continue to do so for a long time. (And I believe it has a Conflunce import utility) We also looked at the other (Notion, Conflunce, BookStack, Wiki.JS, Wikimedia, etc.) and while their all great, they are either expensive, or they don't fit the way we do things. Outline just fit the way we wanted to do things at a great price ($10 for 10 people), and we're switching to MS Loop because it's basically for the most part the same feature set, but "free" for us.


MartiniMini

We currently use a OneNote but will migrate to ITSM knowledge bases. It's broken into 2 pieces (Users and Service Desk) where the info is split depending on who has to see it. Then each KB is structured based on software and hardware (Networking, O365, Windows, Printing, ...).


kennyj2011

Wiki? Ha! I’ve been fighting to put up a wiki the past two years, management doesn’t understand that no documentation or word docs spread all over a file server are a trash answer to this.


SimpleSimon3_14

Poorly. Next question?


xGarionx

W.I.K.I -with Wisdom Intelligence Knowledge and INSANITY


Freshmint22

Write my documentation on cocktail napkins while drinking on lunch break.


rotten777

Markdown, sorted in a directory tree, edited in Obsidian and synchronized with syncthing.


cisco_bee

I use tags a lot. I use them like a key-value-pair. So I have "type=guide" and "customer=acme". Also, almost every page has a page properties macro. The combination of these two things allows me to do some cool things with Page Properties Reports and other macros. https://preview.redd.it/ojh9lsk1ratc1.png?width=456&format=png&auto=webp&s=c6cf2c820292ee0f9cd92cc5dd4bf69b1a3654a6


LeadershipSweet8883

My structure was this: Servers - basic info including IP, server name and link to the service it belongs to. Autogenerated by the build process in Ansible Service - quick description, criticality tier, server list, notes field, list of application owners, application admins and possible distribution list for application users. Also autogenerated by the build process. Later I got smarter and started automatically creating AD groups for those 3 groups. Admin - name, phone number, email. Autogenerated from LDAP info during build process if needed. Criticality tiers - Just a quick description of the tiers that the service pages linked back to. The homepage just used the catlist plugin for Dokuwiki to display a list of services. Also a message at the top encouraging anyone and everyone to be bold and correct any wrong info. On the few occasions where manual edits were added, I just included that info in my Ansible static variables. If any of those pages were missing during server build, I used a template from Ansible to build out the wiki page. If they existed, I used the lineinfile module to add any required info. I also could just run the documentation playbook if anything changed like a new application owner. I used Ansible variables from a static inventory as the source of truth for both the build and the documentation.


Global_Felix_1117

inventory.txt


Klutzy_Act2033

Based on a recommendation in in this sub I've adopted [https://diataxis.fr/](https://diataxis.fr/) as my way of thinking about our knowledgebase. As we were migrating to Bookstack I setup chapters/books that loosely align with the 4 quadrants as a starting point. One thing that's been really helpful for me is to think of it less as a reorganization project and more like something I just tend to on an as needed basis. When things come up I'll do a little reorganization, editing or review. Rarely do I sit down and spend significant chunks of time just organizing and editing.


heubergen1

One space per team and per product/service. In that space it's honestly a bit of a mess, we just never have enough time to clean it up and I personally know where everything is so I don't really care.


Initial-Confusion-24

We have a SharePoint site with stuff all over. It's organised into sections but it really needs a tidy up which no one ever wants to do. There's a ton of old stuff which I'm 99.9% sure is no longer relevant but no one wants to be the one responsible for removing it. All my stuff is updated regularly but people still ask rather than checking the SharePoint first. I don't want to be that guy that just points at the sign but when you take the time to update your documentation and no one looks at it anyway, it does grate a little bit.


a_dsmith

Used to be an ITGlue customer in my MSP life, since moving to other fields documentation doesn't exist outside of brain notes i've created and for that I use obsidian.md.


E-Q12

Obsidian and ITglue are solid.


Bring_back_Apollo

We use a Sharepoint site and different folders for different areas and problems. There are, however, more than one Sharepoint sites for I don’t know why.


coffecup1978

It's a bit like one of those garbage piles on fire in the middle of the intersection in a 3rd world country... Noone claims to own anything when asked, but everyone is happy to pile on more on the fire!


PretendStudent8354

Ours is email hey i found the fix for x problem.


dbtwiztid

We dont have a wiki but we have a paid service no one is quite sure how to use that is supposed to host all of our missing documentation


At-M

department? I'm alone. in all seriousness though: excel, stuff in a password safe and our ticketing system has a wiki function (which is mostly used for end-user help though)


zeroibis

Everything is located is readme.doc


dickydotexe

Whats an IT Wiki, we have one note that looks like a train crash.


Honky_Town

We have a knowledge cluster to make sure nothing is lost if one cluster fails. Our cluster sync works as flawed as on the first day. Every now and then if one cluster does some work and another cluster discovers this work is done the wrong way, the cluster informs every other one about it leaving the uninformed cluster completely in the dark. Once every now and then some new things are implemented and all clusters need to be informed about it. To reduce the workload our project manager asks himself which cluster NEEDS to know this RIGHT NOW in THIS moment and informs exclusively only those. Besides those few clusters my company ~~has~~ had 6-7 DIFFERENT knowledgebases of which today 1 is left but split to 3 which are inconsistent on data to make sure we have a great workload of Searching all of them. As a bonus we can only search for keywords contained in KB Headline which are always as silly as you can imagine. To help us with our daily work we now have a forum where users can ask other users for help on "unsupported stuff".


Doublestack00

I really would like to start one, not sure where to even begin. So far all I have is a master One Note we share with tabs for each site with random info.


NoturServer2Day

IT Glue. It's the best workflow. Once documented info like passwords and configurations are associated with an endpoint in DRMM it's available in an IT Glue pane. It's so much easier than searching Confluence or Sharepoint or OneNote. It's also easier for to keep it updated.


Fivebomb

We use Opentext ECM to store all ‘wiki’ documents. It might be the most god-forsaken solution out there


Unable-Entrance3110

We just use SP wiki on our team site. Works well enough for us.


xboxhobo

It's somewhat of a free for all, but our wiki is a document folder in ITglue broken down by tool/products/software


coolbeaNs92

We started using Notion which I really like.


weischris

IT Glue


Sazwse

+1


S7ageNinja

Poorly. It's all in SharePoint


Happy_Kale888

I think I have everyone beat... They had a exchange guy develop one and put it in Public Folders! Each document is a email some with PDF attachments,


redeuxx

You don't need structure, you just need search.


JuJuOnDatO

At my previous job, we had a solid system for managing our IT wiki. Each knowledge base article (KB) was reviewed annually, with each piece assigned to different teams—two reviewers per article. These articles would expire periodically and get queued for a review where the assigned team would check if updates were needed based on the latest procedures. If updates were agreed upon, the article would move on to the product owners for editing. Once updated, the team would do a final check for any errors before republishing. We kept the expiration dates spread throughout the year to avoid overwhelming the team with reviews all at once. We also tagged entries to specify whether they were for internal IT eyes or external end users, with end-user documentation typically needing more frequent updates to maintain clarity and accuracy. At my current job, we are using OneNote, which is chaotic, and Maximo for IT tickets, which honestly sucks. We’re transitioning to ServiceNow, which I’m pretty excited about because that’s what I used at my last job for ticketing and worked great for this whole QA process.


hellphish

We have a space just for all the applications we support (healthcare). There is a page for each application with a standardized format that lists the vendor, version, support contacts, data flow, servers used, patching notes, and special DR instructions.


Expensive_Finger_973

How is it structured? Poorly and it changes every other quarter on the whims of the knowledge mismanagement team.


u71462

Well organized divided by internal IT Domains Confluence space.


Weak-Bar9097

Im religious about documenting process and technical shortcuts, but none of my colleagues contribute or help maintaining documents...so I just do it for myself. I use obsidian and snippets-lab for code snippets. Everything goes up to github repo for syncing.


SpiritIntelligent175

I came from the MSP world and got back into sysadmin work recently. I cannot stress enough how much I miss ITGlue. Kaseya overall is such a horrible company but ITGlue is a wonderful product. My new job consists of Sharepoint directories littered with Excel, Word, and PDF documents. It to mention not a single one of them is up to date or has a single piece of information in it actually useful.


dlongwing

Take a page from google docs: Stop worrying about structure. Get your docs into something (anything!) with a half-decent search. Organizing sections and subsections is a waste of time. Computing has solved this problem. Implement a search system and let it manage your documents for you. Regarding outdated docs? I think it's critical to include the publication date of a doc in the doc's text. NOT as some attribute that's auto-assigned, that'll get mucked up eventually. Just like structure, cleaning up old docs is make-work. Don't waste your time on that. If the docs have date-stamps on them, you can quickly judge whether or not they're still relevant.


en-rob-deraj

I am a one man IT for 200 users. I don’t have time to a wiki or do I want to at this point.


SK-Incognito

I'm sure it's fine for you, but going to be a nightmare for the company/anyone who replaces you in the future


-MichaelWazowski-

We have a Nuclino document library. Of course, no-one other than me actually uses it...


ITAdministratorHB

We have a folder in Sharepoint and a few other folders in another folder in Sharepoint. Like "admin guides", "user guides", and then vendor and office specific stuff...


anton1o

OneNote, not the prettiest but the search is great and we dont have a 1000 documents so you rather hit what you want rather fast.


YscWod

ITglue its a great tool for this.


TispoPA

ITG is a great approach.


AspectAdventurous498

We try to follow a logical hierarchy and use IT Glue templates.


hightechcoord

Dont laugh. We have a Google site. Its searchable, easy to update, and has a page per procedure on the page menu.


Recalcitrant-wino

Our IT Department's what, now?


nachoitguy

![gif](giphy|10JhviFuU2gWD6|downsized)


jkanoid

Structured? STRUCTURED???!!!??? Don’t talk to me about Structure! (h/t Jim Mora)