Choosing the right (internal) documentation tool for a small business
The problem
Any organization needs documentation. As I got my ISO 9001:2015/14001:2015 certification for my law firm in 2016, I had to acknowledge that Microsoft Word and Excel were not the best systems available for documenting processes and procedures :
- the version control relies heavily on the author of the modification ;
- a good documentation is a read documentation. Word and Excel are not great for that : you might end with hundreds of pages of procedures, processes and politics that no one knows ;
- you need to inform the right team members of any substantial modification of the documentation. This is not easy, and you need to know, for each policy, which persons have to be informed. Again, it relies heavily on the author of the modification ;
- written procedures integrate poorly with other tools (videos, HTML, …).
I looked for a better system for years and I will present four different tools here, three commercials (but one partially open source) and one completely open source. Here is what I learned during this journey.
GetGuru
I first tried GetGuru. This is a great system for keeping documentation up-to-date and sending “knowledge alerts” to the interested team members.
GetGuru works with cards, themselves included in other cards. They think that the knowledge has to be dispatched in tiny pieces to be applied ; cards are typically one or two pages long. Those cards are hyperlinked, and a good search engine allows users to find it quickly.
Their goal is to bring the right knowledge at the right moment. To achieve this, they integrate with plenty of tools to suggest answers in various places. I really like the Slack integration : a bot answers with the right card, sparing time and increasing the use of the documentation across the organization.
If you are starting from scratch, GetGuru will provide models for your organization, and you might end by simply filling blanks for many procedures instead of writing them completely. That’s great!
It also provides a great dashboard. You will immediately notice areas needing for improvement. Users can ask questions and this will lead to a natural extension of the knowledge base.
GetGuru solves a huge problem with ISO norms : it is easy to schedule reviews of each card with separate timelines depending on the matter.
It is easy to embed external documents in the card. The editing process is straightforward, and you can ask your colleagues for real-time help. GetGuru helps to identify experts on specific matters. This is great for growing companies.
You can also open some cards to the public.
This last feature is not as powerful as it should be, in my opinion, and they definitely need an improvement here. I did not want a knowledge base split between an internal wiki and an external one. This is why I left the system after three years : I needed something more open to the customers. That being said, it removes nothing to the great governance provided by GetGuru. I sometimes regret the great governance features that I did not find anywhere else (especially : knowledge alerts, easy to set up permissions, changes management).
I am quite sure that I will come back to GetGuru one day. This will be precisely when they understand that the outside information has to be aligned with the internal one (some examples : having an internal card vs an external card, both with inline editing).
GetGuru received fantastic reviews on G2 (4.7/5) and their pricing model is totally fine IMHO (about USD 10/user/month).
WikiJS
Wiki.js is a completely open-source Wiki packed with tons of features. You have the choice between multiple editors, it provides SSO integrations (and LDAP access) and it is easy to back up.
WikiJS is in overall a great system. It is easy to host and well written. The fact that a single person lead this project makes it quite opinionated (which is a great thing, IMHO).
The interface is a bit outdated in my opinion. The version 3 has been awaited for a long time and will definitely improve a lot the system.
I was a Patreon of this project for a long time, as I think that it was worth the investment (even if I do not use it anymore !).
The only problem with WikiJS is that it relies on one man, which is incredibly reluctant to outside help. I saw it on Discord discussions and, even if you can lead this can of project alone, it is putting the whole thing at danger. He recently had health issues and the awaited v3 had a umpteenth delay.
As I am very sensitive to issues of dependency and technical debt, I preferred to start over with GetOutline.
Notion
Notion is a fantastic tool for a lot of use cases. I will be brief : it is not the best one for internal wiki, IMHO.
Notion has a very convincing holistic approach to modern work, but in my opinion, it is not suitable for the sometimes more formal framework of corporate documentation. This should be minimally constrained by a structure.
However, Notion is precisely the opposite of this type of structure, as it allows users to do anything they want (for example, links to cards that are not daughter pages, but become so, without us being able to know it right away).
Documentation on Notion can quickly become uncontrollable. It lacks tons of governance features that would be appropriate for a commercial product.
But Notion is also the only system on the list that is extremely convincing in terms of project management, databases, and versatility. It is effortless to share publicly (but quite branded. Come on, Notion, allow for custom domain names. You do not need this publicity). It’s up to you to decide.
I will tell you only one thing: if you use Notion, apply my mantra number 3 and stick with it.
GetOutline
GetOutline is IMHO a fantastic mix between a Notion inline editing approach and the more structured documentation needed in any corporate environment.
This is my go-tool right now. It is straightforward to self-host with Cloudron. It also offers a cloud service.
The commercial open-source license makes it sustainable in the long term.
The general design is appealing, and the system is very reactive, which is absolutely needed in my opinion.
Some final thoughts
This is an evolving article. I might post a full update in the future. I might come back to GetGuru if they improve the public sharing. Furthermore, I might be enough of writing policies (and changing systems, by the way).
But I also hope that this very opinionated list might help you in your own journey. Let’s discuss!
