KnowledgeBase

[Donnie]

Hello everyone!

I am creating a KnowledgeBase of sorts for our IT department. Currently we have a FMP file with just a few fields to track projects, when they were opened, who's assigned to them, etc...

There are 2 of us in the department servicing 100+ users. So if someone calls me about an issue, and this issue was already turned in by someone else and my partner fixed it, I would like the benefit of not having to research a problem when the answer is already out there.

That's where the retention of resolutions come in. I am attaching what I have so far, but I'm not sure what else would make it better, or what I can take out. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. I welcome all critiques!

Thank you.

Donnie

FileMaker Version: 6

Platform: Windows 2000

Issue.zip

[Ender]

Hey Donnie. I would recommend you figure out all the processes and relationships before you do the layouts--at least that's how I work. No sense designing a six-tab interface if it turns out you need two layouts (or twenty).

Your big question should be: How should I make it so I can easily see related IT problems and their resolutions?

[Ted S]

Donnie,

I recently built a similar IT-KB. Mine is pretty simple. I have fields for:

KB Article ID (primary key)

Environment (checkboxes for W2K, IE, Intranet, ERP, etc.)

Audience (radio buttons for IT Staff or User Base)

Problem or Goal (free form text)

Cause (free form text)

Solution from the User Perspective (free form text)

Solution from the IT Perspective (free form text)

Related Document(s) (link)

In addition to the obvious uses of a KB I added a couple productivity tools to make accessing and delivering the info easier.

1. I created a global where I could enter a user's email address. Then built a script that would gather the values in the Environment, Problem, Cause, and Solution from the User Perspective fields, format, and then drop them into a second global field. I then use SMTPit to send an email to the user in global one and make the body equal to global two. This allows us to email the solution to the user with the push of a button.

2. We work on a lot of machines that don't have the FileMaker application loaded. Servers are a good example. All computers have IE. So I built a single script that builds an HTML file and we put that up on our intranet so it is available via a browser. That gives us quick access to the info from non-filemaker boxes. You could use IWP or something like that but our KB is fairly static so we don't need access to up-to-the-minute changes.