Tips To Choose the Best Platform to Create Online Documentation

Documentation is an important part of any business. It helps with the smooth running of your organization and makes it easy for your customers to understand your products, processes, and policies. 

The best way to ensure that your documentation is easily accessible is by creating an online platform where all your important information can be placed in one place. This will allow your customers to search for the information they need at their convenience and make it easier to share the information with others in their organization.

If you are looking for a platform to host your online documentation, there are several factors you should consider. Choosing the right platform is easy if you follow these tips:

Robust Functionality

The first thing you should look for when choosing an online documentation creator is the robustness of its functionality. This measures how well the platform can handle large volumes of content and multiple contributors.

Consider the following two elements: 

Managing content: Can you add, edit, and delete content easily? If fewer steps are involved, it will slow down your workflow and make creating content more difficult than needed.

Collaborating with other people: Does the platform have a good commenting system, or does it allow collaboration through other means? This can be useful if you need to bring in other people from different departments or companies to work on certain parts of your documentation project simultaneously.

Customer Service

Customer service is one of the most important factors when choosing your online documentation platform. This is because you want to ensure that you can get help if you need it and that they will be able to resolve any issues in a timely manner.

A good customer service team should be able to answer your questions in a short amount of time. They should also be knowledgeable about their product to provide accurate answers.

If you’re looking for an online documentation platform, ensure they have a live chat feature so you can ask them questions directly without waiting for a response. You should also look for phone numbers so that if you need immediate assistance, you don’t have to wait around on hold for 30 minutes or more just trying to get ahold of someone who can help you out with whatever issue it is that you’re having with the platform.

Documentation Features

It’s important to consider the features of the documentation tool you use. Documentation should be easy to create, edit and maintain. Ensure to check the following features:

• Documentation Management: Is there a way for you to create, edit and manage your documentation? You want to spend only some of your time developing documentation to be responsible for updating it once it’s published.
• Version Control: Can you maintain multiple versions of a single document? If not, you might have content integrity problems if a mistake is made during editing.
• Audience Targeting: Do you know who will be reading your documentation? Knowing this will help determine what type of language and information they need to understand it better.
• Flexibility: Can you customize your documentation template to fit your needs? If not, it won’t be as useful as it could be because you’ll need to start over from scratch every time you launch a new project or product.

Support Rich Content Formats

The most important thing about documentation is that it should be easily searchable and readable. You want to ensure that your users can find the information they need quickly without spending a lot of time searching for it. You should choose a platform that supports rich content formats like PDFs, Word documents, spreadsheets, and more.

Choosing a platform that only supports HTML pages will limit your ability to create the best possible documentation for your users. It is also important to ensure the platform has built-in collaboration features so that multiple people can work on the same document simultaneously.

Another feature to look for is version control so that if there are any changes or updates needed, they can be made easily without having to worry about losing any of the original information or formatting.

A good documentation platform should support the following rich content formats:

HTML: HTML is the most common format for online documentation. It can be written in any text editor, but using a specialized tool with syntax highlighting and other features is easier.

Markdown: Markdown is a lightweight language that’s easy to learn and read. While there are many ways to write in Markdown, a simple online editor is the best way for beginners to get started with this format.

Rich text: Rich text allows you to include images, tables, headers, and footers within your document. It’s not as flexible as Markdown or HTML, but it’s still useful when building more complex compositions.

Security

Information security is one of the most important aspects of any documentation platform. When you create documentation for your organization, you will likely store sensitive information about customers and employees. Protecting this data from unauthorized access is crucial. 

There are many ways to secure your website, but some platforms offer more advanced features. For example, some platforms allow you to use two-factor authentication to connect your login. Others provide more granular control over who has access to what information.

The following are some security features that you should consider when choosing a platform:

• Authentication System: The authentication system should be able to verify if the user is who he claims to be. This can be done through different methods such as usernames, passwords, biometrics, etc.
• Secured Connection: The connection between the client and server should be encrypted so that only authorized users can access the data. This will protect your data from unauthorized access and hacking attempts.
• Data Encryption: Data encryption protects your information from theft by hackers or other malicious agents. It also secures unauthorized users from accessing your content when it travels over public networks like the Internet.

User-Friendly Interface

A user-friendly and simple to use document management solution is what you should pick. The application interface should be simple, with enough features to easily create and manage documentation without any hassles.

The system should also allow you to organize your documents in various ways, such as by category, project, or subject matter. This will make it easier to find the information you need at a given time.

It is also important to look for a document management system that allows you to upload files from any device or platform you may be using. This will make it easier for every team member to access the same information at once, improving productivity and efficiency within your organization.

Bottom Line

Ask yourself these questions if you want to find the best online documentation creator. You’ll probably find ways to test each platform and access their features to compare and learn which fits your needs. When you know how your users will use your documentation and how often, imagine if a certain feature was available on one platform but not another. Is that feature critical for the way you will be using the documentation? Find out by comparing platforms with an open mind and keep it focused on what is important for your project and goals.