Hi everyone,
I've recently started working at a medium-sized enterprise with around 40 IT staff, and I'm quickly realizing that our documentation is a mess—spread across emails, personal OneDrives, and outdated file shares. Thankfully, I've got the go-ahead to centralize and migrate everything to **SharePoint Online**. However, before we dive in, I need to present a solid plan for how to categorize and structure our documentation to management. Since we operate a mix of on-prem infrastructure and are expanding our Azure/365 capabilities, I'm weighing a few options:
1. **Classic Folder Structure:** A hierarchical approach with a limited number of levels (like Infrastructure > Network > Palo Alto).
2. **Metadata/Search Driven:** More of a flat library system with tags for "Asset Type," "Department," and "Vendor."
3. **Modern Pages (Wiki):** Moving completely away from traditional Word/PDF formats and using SharePoint Pages.
For anyone who has had to use SharePoint as their knowledge base:
- What primary categories or libraries have worked best for you?
- Did you stick to folders, or was enforcing metadata tagging effective?
Thanks for your insights!
5 Answers
A solid recommendation is to choose a system with strong search and tagging capabilities. With that many contributors, you'll end up with thousands of documents, and good search functionality will save everyone time.
We recently switched to BookStack, which uses a really straightforward books-and-shelves concept. It allows for per-book or per-shelf permissions, making it easy to manage access.
I've explored SharePoint for documentation, but it always felt unwieldy. I eventually switched to Outline Wiki. It's free and open-source, works smoothly with Azure SSO, and has a clean interface.
Honestly, SharePoint can be a pain for documentation. I strongly recommend using something that's markdown-based instead, like Wiki.js, GitBook, or Docksify. These are user-friendly and come with great features.
I had a client who thought SharePoint was great for documentation, though. I guess it depends on how you use it!
Some of us prefer searching for what we need rather than browsing through folders, so definitely prioritize good search functionality. It's also crucial to align with your team's culture—if they're used to owning docs, you’ll need to set expectations around collaboration.
I'm considering using Outline Wiki for our docs too. What specific pros and cons have you noticed so far?