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Implementing a Knowledge Management Solution?
"We currently log all our technical info/instructions etc in Microsoft Word docs, emails and scribbles on paper. Share Point seems to be a logical solution for our collection of Microsoft Word documents, however I'm not much for loading Word to view something that could be displayed or edited in a browser.
I really like the Wiki idea, and found a VB script to convert Word to Wiki. However large documents may be a pain to do this with, and some people may not be comfortable with such a change. I can upload documents to the site and tie them to a particular page/File Gallery but I'm not sure about search functions searching the text of the document. I'd also like a way to export info, possibly to RTF/XML/HTML or some format that Word can read/edit/save and then import to the Knowledge Share.
I was hoping someone would have some advice/ideas/experience with getting this setup. Ultimately we'd like Searching, Grouping, LDAP authentication, Calendar functionality (we use Outlook so who knows), document storage, and Wiki functionality. It is the hope that something useful and user friendly which non-technical people would be comfortable using."
Get a LAMPS solution with Wakka Wiki. The Wiki source comes to about 500kb, and can be infinitely customised. It's pretty damn cool...
I'm amazing. You aren't. SUCK IT
I'd recommend Plone v 2.0
WhyPlone
It incorporates the Wiki features you mentioned, has support for authenticating against Active Directory and LDAP, even SMB if that is what you use and it has a fully implemented ACL system with granular permissions which includes adding files/documents as content and setting global, group and user specific permissions on each file or on folders "with inheritance".
Not to mention one of the best documented APIs around for any OS CMS.
Check it out, it is very robust and scales well.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
I am new to the world of Wikis -- especially as an administrator. I was tired of keeping my notes in a giant text file though. It was growing to about 1mb and was difficult to deal with. I tried an application called "WikiPad" and it lacked a lot of flexibility that I wanted (and cost $12).
What I've done recently is deployed a TWiki/PostgreSQL/Apache solution. Because I'm stuck on a windows machien for a majority of the time where I am, I'm using the Cygwin solution. It eats up virtually no memory (apache consumes perhaps 7mb of RAM). I have a "web" in wiki for me under my name for everythign in the world that is at all related to my personal life. From taxes to contacts to stories about my life and todo lists and random pieces of data. I even have all of my important pdf manuals for various home products uploaded to the wiki database and all of my important software drivers and utilities archived in/on it. Then I have a wiki "web" for my work. So when I want work related things (technical notes, policies, files, resources, links, communications, contacts, todo lists, etc) I click on WORK when I want my personal life I click on ME.
It works pretty damn well and has lots of plugins. It's open source and free, too. TWiki, postgresql, cygwin and apache are all 100% free. Compare that to the closed-standard microsoft solution... I'll take the awesome extendable free one!
My company just implemented something like this for a client - feature-wise, I mean. We didn't do LDAP support or calendaring, but most everything else is there. In fact, we had to remove many of the features we wrote because the client decided not to use them - such as the capability for discussions to hang off of a document or a folder within the system.
:) Then again, we did just do something very similar to this for another client - and code reuse saves you money. Oh, and no, we didn't use Plone - Zope wasn't an option for the client (which was annoying - I love python), so we wrote a custom PHP-mysql system for them, to which we retain the rights. We may open source it at some point - but right now the project is still in the bug-fix warranty period and we're more concerned with the clients needs.
Anyway, Something like Plone may work for you. If you don't find something canned that seems to do what you want - or you think something like Plone could work with snowmen modifications - look into hiring someone to modify the system you think will work best for you. Most of the systems out there you will look at are free - meanwhile sharepoint isn't. Paying someone to modify OS software to meet your needs may be cheaper than the licensing fees for sharepoint! There is something to be said for integration with all of the MS Office tools - but then again, a move to Open Office (or star office) would be easier to push in your organization if you didn't rely upon MS-Office specific systems in cases such as this. That is a lot of money your company could save down the line that you'd completely write-off with sharepoint - it just wouldn't be an option.
Anyway, consider hiring a consulting firm to do the work for a fee less than the cost of a sharepoint system - you'll get exactly what you need, and not be tied into MS. Many sharepoint systems need customization work performed in order to 'fit' with a company's needs - so down the sharepoint road you could wind up with license fees _and_ development costs.
As for a firm to use - if you have a local favorite you use, give them a buzz. If you don't - which you probably don't, or you would of asked them their opinion already - then consider www.neurokode.com. Of course, I'm biased, I'm a half-owner of
For those who are curious, we used several open-source utilities (via command-line calling behind the scenes from PHP), such as doc2html, to provide automatic conversion of documents into usable and searchable strings for use in a full-text index within mysql. Thus, we gained the ability to search DOC, PDF, XLS and other types of files without requiring the files themselves to be changed. The original files were stored seperately and available for download to authorized users of the site.
man is machine
Last year we did some research and looked into the various different helpdesk solutions that are available. Most of them were really expensive but we found Cerberus for $100. Although it is a ticketing system, it's also got a built in knowledgebase which is searchable on subject, keyword, content, etc. It may not be right for what you need (you don't say why you are implementing a knowledgebase) but it's very handy to have the answers to technical queries available in the same system that the helpdesk uses to record problem.
The Romans didn't find algebra very challenging, because X was always 10
My main requirement on any such system is simple: revision control. If you cannot see the change history of the things in the system, or compare versions and so on, it's next to useless to me.
Don't re-invent the wheel. Get a customizable product and an expert that can customize it.
I suggest Livelink. Well, it's not free. It costs money. It may cost lots of money if you want all those nice features. It's not open source. But I have enough Karma to burn. ;-)
Web page: http://www.opentext.com/
The consulting company I work for is based on knowledge. Fast, reliable and secure (permisson based) access to archived knowledge is mission critical. So there never was a problem buying the software we need for business, no matter what it costs.
My job is not Livelink. But I work in the same room as our Livelink expert. So I collect a little bit of knowlegde about Livelink. I'm the one he asks for Unix and network tricks.
Livelink has a document management (that's the main part), team rooms, workstreams, and a lot of other nice features. For details, have a look at the web page. Livelink is a core server, extended by a lot of scripts (in a custom language named Oscript), and a tiny CGI that passes requests from the webserver to the core server. If you own a development kit, you can customize nearly every aspect of Livelink, and you can see lots of code written by Opentext. So if you have the money, you can at least see most of the sources.
We use three dual-CPU W2K machines with Apache 1.3.x as Web and application servers, a fourth dual-CPU W2K machine for the indexer and search engine, a Sun 420 running Solaris 9 for the database (Oracle), and Linux Virtual Server (LVS) as load balancer for the webservers. We have about 1500 users all around the world.
Why so many servers? Most of the time, one web server is completely idle. Opentext would recommend a single server setup, and that would be sufficient. But we have demanding consultants, our problems are response time and availability. We have some queries that block a server for a while. So we need at least two servers. The third server is for load peaks and for downtimes of one of the other servers. Index and search also need a lot of power that would block a single machine, so it's placed on the fourth server.
Why W2K? The most recent version of Livelink requires it.
Why Sun? Oracle on Windows simply sucks, the raw CPU power of the previous multi-CPU x86 database machine was larger than the one of the Sun machine, but Oracle runs much faster on the Sun. (Now all corporate databases are switched to a Oracle/Sun cluster, but that's a different story.)
Why LVS? Simple: It works. We tried a load-balancing software called Resonate, a really fitting name for a piece of software that should implement a control loop. We kicked it because it was hard to maintain and did not work reliably on our machines. We tried LVS on a really old desktop and it worked great, even if we tried really hard to confuse it. Now it has its own x86 server running Slackware, and we did not have a single second of trouble with it.
Why Apache? We used Netscape Enterprise Server / iPlanet. It had a pretty web-based config tool and much bloat, and it costs money. Apache does the same job for free, and its configuration is a simple text file that can be copied to the various servers. MS IIS has bugs. Lots of bugs. Its mouse controlled. We did not even think about a test system with the IIS.
Tux2000
Denken hilft.
Why not go with Share Point? I'm not the world's biggest M$ fan, but this product works fairly well. It integrates well with all your requirements, has pretty wide spread industry use, and uses formats that people use and are familiar with. I understand people wanting to go with open software, but just blindly saying "no" to something simply because it's Microsoft isn't necessarily fair to your employer or clients. I think one of the things MS has done well, is it's Office Suite. If you find a better product that is open source, go ahead and use it, but don't discount a product, "just because" it's Microsoft. Hey, even a stopped clock is right twice a day, so even Microsoft can occassionally do something right. I know this isn't the popular view here on /. but your employer does deserves you looking at all options.
Just my $0.02
Liberalism...the next best thing to thinking.
Do you want to entrust your trolling to some guy writing in between playing Halo, drinking beer, and browsing pornography?
You will not get fired for choosing the Slashdot troll solution so I recommend it as the best option.
My advice to you would be: hire someone who knows the right questions to ask before you move forward. The phrase "you don't know what you don't know" applies. Your spec says:
"we want to do some stuff"
it does not say:
* what the problem is (we have stuff in word isn't a real problem)
* who is accessing the information and from where.
* how information from the KB is going to be used.
* What kind of measurement of KB use is needed (eg. tracking what items are used to weight scoring in searches)
* What business systems (i.e. CRM, Accounting, document creation, etc are in place).
There is a ton of off the shelf software that does knowledge management. Not one package I've seen does it the same way. Because this type of software is really a canned set business processes, you need to evaluate what needs to be done from the big picture before you even start looking at packages. Otherwise, you'll get a Rube Goldberg that will not be used by end users.
-- $G
If you already have the MS Office infrastructure, Sharepoint integrates pretty well. MS Office documents in Sharepoint document libraries open in your IE browser and the Sharepoint tools for comments and discussions within documents integrate pretty nicely. You get the option to use a simple change management model.
Sharepoint lets you subscribe to just about any content in the Sharepoint web, giving you email notifications when things change. So for example, you save your draft design document (as a Word document) into a Sharepoint document library and send a request for review to a group of people, subscribe to the document, and when your reviewers make comments in your document, you know about it immediately. Works well.
There is a workflow capability, but you have to set it up in Frontpage. I didn't find this terribly useful or user friendly, but then again, what workflow system is?
All in all, it's at least worth taking a loot at. Granted, it's not free as in beer, and it helps to already be stuck with some MS infrastructure, and it helps to have some FP experience.
To state the obvious, in a perfect world I would be working in an OSS shop and would have experience with something like Zope and could tout it's benefits to you. But that's not the world I work in.
One other non OSS product you might want to look at is Documentum. I've used this product as well, and if it weren't for some stupid PHB-like reasons, we might be using it instead of Sharepoint. It does the document management thing pretty well, has document management, revision control and workflows. I'd judge it to be more robust than Sharepoint in these areas.
Finally, just to preserve some OSS credibility and not sound like a total MS tool, I'm working on a port one of our applications that currently runs on OpenVMS and HP-UX to Linux to take advantage of the lower TCO and in response to customer requests for a non-proprietary platform solutions.
Yes, implementing an OSS solution is almost certainly costlier and more work in the short run. But it is also almost certainly cheaper and less risky in the long run.
Most of the Wiki's I evaluated were written in PHP, which isn't my language of choice, mostly because I'm not familiar with it. Plus I love perl. I also have no experience with MySQL and it's not set up on my server so I didn't wan't to have to deal with that as a requirement for some silly wiki software. Finally it AMAZED me how many wiki applications lack ANY form of revision control. I mean, the wiki concept of openness is great and all, but when some kiddie pastes ascii goatse.cx over all my pages, I want to be able to roll back those revisions!!! TWiki uses good ole' RCS and has good tools for checking out old revisions, diffing different revision, and rolling back to an older revision.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
I would have been the first to tell you about Plone, but I was in bed and apparently others beat me to it:)
Plone is extremely flexible, and fast to production. I have now tested and have in production many instances, and have developed installation, backup rotation, and restoration scripts. The system virtually runs itself when set up, and users find it very intuitive.. Additionally it has very granular user/group control, allowing you to control who publishes what with very little effort.
Sharepoint might be good or not, but on the reason of licensing costs alone, I would choose Plone. You will pay zero dollars for world class CMS/knowledge base solution.
Plone has bunches of modules (products) and features you may find useful. Trouble ticketing system, news section, RSS feeds and RSS publishing, mailing lists production, galleries, forums for discussion, among others. In addition to many levels of undo so that you can correct any action taken if need be.
Another plus is you can cluster (again at no dollars) instances using Zeo, if you need robustness.
Plone looks professional, clean and slick. Plus it's super customizable. Take a look at csszengarden.com and the various looks on the right, to get an idea of what can be acheived with CSS... and look at zopezen.org to see a real simple look that can be acheived on the skin. There's a lot you can do under the hood, or you can just leave it alone. It can easily be administered remotely. And I front end it with Apache and SSL, for a secure access solution.
The Plone community is friendly and responsive, but comprised of some serious Python hackers who probably expect you to come well versed up to a certain level.. Therefore I must second the idea mentioned before of engaging a professional to help you identify your needs now and going forward, and also you capabilities to narrow it down to the right solution for your company.
Do our current documents (MS Office) show up in the same basic format -- and can we use similar tools?
If we want to switch from one Wiki or CMS to another, how do we do it?
After some research, I found that for the basics it was simple;
The pages are typically HTML and can be bulk converted.
The formatting could be handled by using a fairly new browser and the 'rich text' edit extentions.
On the down side...
The number of Wikis with 'rich text' support was small.
Not all the content could be converted to/from other systems, so there would be some data loss.
Now that I'm on other projects, does anyone have tips/suggestions/resouces even if to say "thems da' breaks"?
I'd love to have something ready to go so that the struggle to get these tools used will not be so great. (If it is 'pretty' that would be a plus, as Twiki's default ugly almost killed it off during the first round of review.)
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
If it has to be, why not something like OpenCMS? It's java-based and quite robust, though not nearly as feature-full as something like Plone.
And yeah, I'm the author, so I am biased!
from MIT.
Anyway take a gander around. There is:
dspace.mit.edu
and
dspace.org which is their portal, I guess.
Any preoccupation with ideas of what is right or wrong in conduct shows an arrested intellectual development. (Wilde)
I am surprised that no-one has mentioned Wikipedia's codebase, Mediawiki, which runs on a standard LAMP architecture.
We have installed it at our company and are finding it is perfect for Knowledge Management.
Just some of the features it has are:
- complete revision history of every article
- back links (what links here)
- watchlists
- preferences
- skins
- comprehensive link analysis
- namespaces
- editing assistant (buttons that turn selected text into a link, bold, italics, etc)
- customized pages
- pages inclusions
- many more
- and of course the simplicity and ease of editing that comes with a Wiki.
It has a dynamic mailing list, lots of developers (and hence improvements going on), and a vibrant community behind it.
Once you can convince managers to back it, you can't lose. Suggestion: install it and build it for a while before you show it to management, that way the content helps to show how useful the product is.