How to Build a Comprehensive Knowledge Database

The knowledge database should be integrated into the organisation’s social intranet. This ensures that all individuals involved in the organisation can access and work within the database. Social intranet software is an excellent choice for a central knowledge hub, as it provides several functions that a knowledge database should have. All types of files, whether classic office documents, PDFs, images or even videos, can be uploaded. Additionally, these documents can be edited directly on such a platform.

A social intranet also offers the possibility of communicating about the uploaded knowledge using its built-in communication functions, without having to switch to another channel. Finally, the knowledge uploaded in a social intranet can be organised into folders or groups. This keeps the collected knowledge clear and easy to find when searching for specific information. Naturally, a search function is also available for emergencies.

A knowledge database is a long-term project that should be carefully planned. It is therefore important to understand the process of building such a database. This process consists of eight steps, which may vary depending on the organisational type and existing conditions.

Step 1: Needs analysis:

Identify your organisation’s requirements for the knowledge database. What type of information should it contain? Who should have access? It is important to determine which knowledge is in particularly high demand within the organisation and where potential knowledge gaps exist.

Step 2: Selecting the platform:

Choose a suitable platform for your knowledge database — ideally a social intranet. Social intranets not only allow data to be uploaded in one central place but also enable collaborative editing of these files. Furthermore, file versioning is possible, and content can be divided into folders, subfolders and groups. This allows knowledge to be sorted clearly and made easily accessible.

Step 3: Structuring the database:

Plan how information should be organised within the database. This could be by department, by topic or by any other method that makes sense for your organisation.

Step 4: Creating the database:

Use the tools provided by your platform to build the database. This may involve creating pages, adding categories and tags, creating folders, uploading documents, etc. It is a time-consuming process that may require a larger team, but the platform’s built-in tools significantly simplify it.

Step 5: Populating the database:

Add the required information to the database. Images and videos can also be uploaded to your social intranet’s database. This ensures that knowledge exists in different media formats so that everyone involved can find something that suits their needs and preferred learning style.

Step 6: Managing access rights:

Ensure that the right people have access to the database. This may involve setting up user groups and assigning permissions. Not all knowledge is relevant to all users, so it is worthwhile organising parts of the database into groups. This keeps the database clear, and users can join groups when they want to learn more about a specific topic.

Step 7: Training participants:

Ensure that users know how to use the knowledge database. This may take the form of training sessions, guides or other resources. You can provide training materials directly within your social intranet or organise additional events. Whether digital, on-site or hybrid — ensure as many people as possible learn how to use the database and how they can contribute content themselves.

Step 8: Maintenance and updates:

Ensure that the database is regularly updated and maintained to guarantee its relevance and accuracy. Some knowledge is timeless, while other knowledge — especially digital content — develops rapidly and becomes outdated quickly. Work on a knowledge database is therefore never finished, as the stored knowledge must be continuously updated. It is essential to appoint individuals responsible for maintaining, updating and reviewing the database.

Anyone who has dealt more deeply with knowledge management knows that there are different kinds of knowledge. This creates a major challenge in determining how best to capture each type in order to create added value. There are many possibilities:

• Explicit knowledge: This type of knowledge includes facts, instructions and guidelines. It is the easiest to document. All formats are suitable, including documents and visual media such as images, graphics or videos. This knowledge can easily be captured using such files and uploaded to the database in the social intranet, where all participants can access it.
• Implicit knowledge: It is more difficult to upload implicit knowledge to a knowledge database and even more challenging to convert it into a format that can be uploaded in the first place. This includes experiences, best practices and tried-and-tested methods that are usually accumulated in people’s minds over many years. It is therefore important to develop creative methods. Experiences or tips can be written down in a document. But why not also use other methods, such as an infographic? With tools like Canva, even people without design experience can do this today. Videos — for example, demonstrating a work process — are also an excellent way to capture such knowledge.
• Social knowledge: For this type of knowledge, a social intranet as a knowledge hub with a database is ideal. It includes discussions, comments and collective insights. Since a social intranet provides communication tools such as posts, chat or personal messages, knowledge and experiences can be exchanged directly there. This can relate to the collected knowledge in the database or be used as part of a knowledge exchange between two or more people.

There are many ways to collect, manage and use different kinds of knowledge within an organisation. One of the most effective methods is building a knowledge database within a social intranet. The reason for this is that the stored knowledge is not simply saved statically and forgotten; instead, it can be changed and discussed — all without switching channels. A social intranet as a central knowledge hub, housing the organisation’s knowledge database, significantly simplifies knowledge management in organisations.