Using Confluence for knowledge management: 6 best practices
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Using Confluence for knowledge management: 6 best practices
Helen Jackson
20 December 2024
4 min read
Helen Jackson
20 December 2024
4 min read
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What is knowledge management?
Why use Confluence for knowledge management?
How to use Confluence for knowledge management
Building a culture of shared knowledge
Sharing knowledge has never been easier. We reveal our top tips for better knowledge management in Confluence.
Effective knowledge management means faster innovation, better team collaboration, and improved business performance. With knowledge workers sharing and categorising files and information, decision-makers are more equipped to make impactful decisions that affect the bottom line, and staff are empowered to learn, grow, and develop, which only contributes to better business performance.
There’s no use gatekeeping content: secrecy has no place in business success. Keep reading to learn the best practices for knowledge management in Confluence and preserve institutional memory.
There’s no use gatekeeping content: secrecy has no place in business success. Keep reading to learn the best practices for knowledge management in Confluence and preserve institutional memory.
What is knowledge management?
Knowledge management is a process that involves creating, organising, and sharing knowledge within an organisation. By collating internal knowledge, you help others learn new things quickly and make accessing the information they need easy.
Let’s say you have a new member of staff starting; instead of letting them figure things out on their own or spending hours answering their specific questions, they can take a self-guided tour around your knowledge base where they can easily access onboarding documentation, including annual leave policies, branding guidelines, and more. Helping them settle in quicker and get acquainted with your business operations.
Let’s say you have a new member of staff starting; instead of letting them figure things out on their own or spending hours answering their specific questions, they can take a self-guided tour around your knowledge base where they can easily access onboarding documentation, including annual leave policies, branding guidelines, and more. Helping them settle in quicker and get acquainted with your business operations.
Why use Confluence for knowledge management?
For comprehensive knowledge management, you’ll need to identify, organise, and share your knowledge. You can do all this easily from within Confluence, making managing and maintaining your knowledge superbly easy.
Confluence's real-time communication feature streamlines interactions for remote workers or teams. And its powerful search engine means locating the relevant documentation is a breeze.
Confluence's real-time communication feature streamlines interactions for remote workers or teams. And its powerful search engine means locating the relevant documentation is a breeze.
How to use Confluence for knowledge management
We recommend creating a Confluence knowledge base, but these best practices apply to any type of documentation you keep in Confluence.
1. Plan out your Confluence content
Before you start with Confluence, you should hone in on the audience. Who is your content for? Your audience could target company employees or external customers. Figuring this out helps you map out what content you need and from whom.
2. Save time by using Confluence templates
Instead of starting from scratch, you can save huge amounts of time and effort by customising a Confluence template. There are heaps of visually stunning options to choose from.
3. Arrange your pages into user-friendly guides
You want to create content that’s not just used, but adds real value to its users. That means making knowledge easy for users to navigate. With Guided Pathways for Confluence, you can create handy step-by-step guides from your Confluence pages, which makes finding answers almost effortless.
4. Manage who can access your knowledge
Add users and set user permissions across the spaces you’ve created in Confluence. You can also invite users through integrated platforms like Slack or Trello. By making your knowledge visible to all team members, you encourage a more transparent, communicative working environment.
5. Measure user engagement
It’s important to know whether users are actually engaging with your pages. One way to measure activity is by using Confluence Analytics. This helps you monitor page views, page activity, and site searches, helping you quickly identify pages that aren’t utilised and roll out improvements where needed.
6. Organise your knowledge by topic or theme
Don’t forget to organise your content in a clear hierarchy of pages. This makes it easier for users to navigate through your content, finding the right content they need at that moment. So if your knowledge base or documentation is for new starters, you might want to group sections based on departmental procedures, general employee policies, FAQ section, induction checklists, etc.
Before you start with Confluence, you should hone in on the audience. Who is your content for? Your audience could target company employees or external customers. Figuring this out helps you map out what content you need and from whom.
2. Save time by using Confluence templates
Instead of starting from scratch, you can save huge amounts of time and effort by customising a Confluence template. There are heaps of visually stunning options to choose from.
3. Arrange your pages into user-friendly guides
You want to create content that’s not just used, but adds real value to its users. That means making knowledge easy for users to navigate. With Guided Pathways for Confluence, you can create handy step-by-step guides from your Confluence pages, which makes finding answers almost effortless.
4. Manage who can access your knowledge
Add users and set user permissions across the spaces you’ve created in Confluence. You can also invite users through integrated platforms like Slack or Trello. By making your knowledge visible to all team members, you encourage a more transparent, communicative working environment.
5. Measure user engagement
It’s important to know whether users are actually engaging with your pages. One way to measure activity is by using Confluence Analytics. This helps you monitor page views, page activity, and site searches, helping you quickly identify pages that aren’t utilised and roll out improvements where needed.
6. Organise your knowledge by topic or theme
Don’t forget to organise your content in a clear hierarchy of pages. This makes it easier for users to navigate through your content, finding the right content they need at that moment. So if your knowledge base or documentation is for new starters, you might want to group sections based on departmental procedures, general employee policies, FAQ section, induction checklists, etc.
Learn more: Top tips for organising Confluence pages
Building a culture of shared knowledge
Introducing knowledge management can be met with resistance - in some cases, you’ll be asking employees to change their way of thinking and working. But sharing internal knowledge is essential. It helps you boost team productivity, improve innovation, and encourage effortless employee training and development.
And guess what, it can even help you save money! Knowledge management done well can cut down on training and development costs. So, take the time to harness this new environment and embrace knowledge-sharing processes because it may well transform how you compete in your respective markets.
And guess what, it can even help you save money! Knowledge management done well can cut down on training and development costs. So, take the time to harness this new environment and embrace knowledge-sharing processes because it may well transform how you compete in your respective markets.
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Written by
Helen Jackson
Content Writer
Helen is a freelance content writer specialising in Software as a Service (SaaS). She has a BA Hons degree in English, a Chartered Institute of Marketing qualification, and over ten years of experience in content marketing.
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