Build a knowledge base that meets your customers' needs
10 min
Intermediate
By the end of this lesson, you'll be able to:
- Build a documentation space
- Use templates and blueprints to manage documentation
Tips for building a knowledge base
The overall goal and intended audience of your documentation determine whether you鈥檒l need to create a new space for your articles. It鈥檚 best to consider whether your documentation is relevant to an already existing space or needs a new space.
馃憠 For example: As HR manager, Ollie creates documentation for the company鈥檚 employee handbook. Instead of creating a new space, he decides it鈥檚 best to have this handbook in the already existing company space, which employees reference often for office policies.
It鈥檚 common to create new spaces when you need to control users' access to them. Admins may find it best to create a new space if they need it to be externally accessible or limited to a specific set of viewers. This ensures that the information is only shared with the users who need it.
馃憠 For example: Allegra is creating documentation on a confidential new product that has yet to be released to the public. She creates a new documentation space to limit viewing permissions to a specific set of users from her internal team. This ensures that no external shareholders may accidentally be granted access.
Plan your approach
How you organize your documentation space impacts how easily your users can find the information they need. Proactively planning the structure of your space allows it to continue to be useful to your users as your content grows.
Consider the purpose of your space before setting it up. Is it meant for internal technical documentation? Or is it meant for self-help technical use by external customers? Then, brainstorm the topics that will be covered in the space and how you would want them organized within the space.
Set up your knowledge base
Use templates and blueprints to build the space.
You don't have to start from scratch when you build a new space or page. Instead, you can base your new content on a blueprint or template. Templates are Confluence page structures with predefined content. Confluence has more than 70 templates to help you with everything from taking meeting notes to defining your business strategy. You鈥檒l find more templates on Atlassian Marketplace. You can also create your own.
Blueprints are templates created by Atlassian or by third-party developers. From an end-user perspective, blueprints and templates are the same, but there are some important differences for admins.
馃憞 Click the tabs below to learn how Confluence site admins and space admins use blueprints.
Confluence site admins can:
- Install global blueprints from the Atlassian Marketplace
- Enable and disable global blueprints
- Edit existing global blueprints
- Promote and unpromote global blueprints
Neither site admins nor space admins can create blueprints. However, they can create custom templates.
Start with a blueprint
When starting a new knowledge base, we recommend starting from a provided blueprint relevant to your content goals.
To use a blueprint:
- From your knowledge base space, create a new page by clicking Create and selecting Page.
- Select the template you want to model the page on. You can select templates two different ways.
- At the bottom of the new page window, click the All templates link.
- On the new page's menu bar, select the More actions (...) menu on the far right of the menu, then select Templates & import doc.
- Click on your desired template to select it.
馃憞 This is an example of the templates and blueprints available for Confluence pages.
Manage your templates and blueprints
Sometimes, you need to customize a section of a blueprint to better meet your needs.
To edit a blueprint:
- Select the More actions (路路路) menu next to the knowledge base space in the sidebar, and select Space settings.
- In the sidebar, navigate to Look and feel, select Templates.
- Next to a blueprint, select Edit.
- Delete or add new macro sections as needed or change the settings of each individual macro.
馃憞 Watch this video to see how to edit a blueprint.
Not all blueprints are customizable. Some can't be edited, including the Team Playbook blueprints (such as the Health Monitor, DACI, Project Poster, and Experience blueprints).
If your page needs a more unique structure, you can create custom templates for your team.
We recommend customizing the how-to and troubleshooting article templates to make them relevant to your organization. This makes it easy for users like your help desk or support team to create knowledge base articles. The more guidance and structure you can put in your template, the faster your team can create excellent articles.
To create a custom template:
- Select the More actions (路路路) menu next to the knowledge base space in the sidebar, and select Space settings.
- In the sidebar, navigate to Look and feel, select Templates.
- Select Create a new template from the upper right of the Templates window.
- Create your desired page structure, adding a title and macros.
- Click Save.
馃憞 Watch this video to see how to create a custom article template.
Maintain your knowledge base
Implementing a knowledge base is a key component of knowledge management. Even after implementing a system, you鈥檙e constantly adding new material, eliminating outdated items, and discovering best practices.
馃憞 Click the boxes below to learn more about managing a knowledge base.
馃憞Once best practice is to use article labels and categories to improve searchability.
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Configure knowledge base access and permissions
- Control access to a knowledge base
- Manage public access to a space
- Configure knowledge base access and permissions
- Manage who can view and edit knowledge base articles
- Suggest articles to customers