To:

Mark Smith, Customer Service Site Manager

From:

Turner McCulley, Training Specialist

Subject: Knowledge Management Software Recommendation

Date:

June 20, 2016

The purpose of this recommendation memo is to present the research findings from the
knowledge management software selection research and present the top two knowledge
management applications that will meet our contracts needs.

Summary
This recommendation memo compiles the methodology used to determine the software
requirements for the knowledge base management software. It outlines the primary feedback that
was given during the employee and manager surveys and what features our contract will require.
Additionally, this report outlines the features of many prominent knowledge management
solutions and analyzes, evaluates, and quantifies, which software will best meet CNI IT-GSs
requirements. Last it recommends the two applications that will meet best meet our contacts
needs and recommends how to make a final determination.

Introduction
Knowledge management is an important part of efficiently managing IT. Proper IT knowledge
management allows for IT technicians to easily find the information they need to resolve
customer issues and follow the proper documented processes. Strong knowledge management
also reduces duplication of work where technicians must constantly rediscover solutions to
problems. As each knowledge holding employee leaves our company, without properly
documenting their knowledge, this time saving and valuable knowledge is lost to our contract.
By following proper knowledge management procedures, we can document and maintain this
knowledge. The end result is technicians that can easily find the information needed to complete
their job, customers issues are resolved faster, increased customer satisfaction, and decreased
costs for the company.
Currently, CNI IT-GS is severely lacking in knowledge management. Our IT support knowledge
is spread throughout several SharePoint and share drive locations. These locations are all
restricted to allow only a very few select people to upload documentation. This results in
documentation that is lacking in collaboration and is very sparse. Additionally, most of the
articles written down are extremely old and no longer relevant to the technicians searching for
resolutions.
The solution to our knowledge management issues lies in having a collaborative system that
allows technicians to document and update materials with new information as needed. By

leveraging collaboration, our contracts technicians collectively can easily keep this knowledge
up to date. Many IT organizations have dedicated knowledge management software and even
dedicated, full time, knowledge management positions. This report will recommend a software
solution that will enable our contract to better maintain the valuable knowledge obtained through
our employees research and troubleshooting.

Research Methods
Task 1: Acquire a list of mandatory and desired features.
Due to the limited time for research, employee and management were surveyed to obtain the
features they deemed as necessary, preferred, and optional for a top performing knowledge
management application. The top performing five percent of employees were surveyed and asked
these questions. Additionally, they were asked about any knowledge management software they
have used in the past, and their perception of this software. This allowed for several knowledge
management applications to be introduced and for the end users of the software to get input into
what they valued.
Additional to the technician surveys, the three queue managers were interviewed and asked the
same questions as the technicians. This allowed them to provide their input into what they feel
was necessary for this knowledge management software to best assist our contract with properly
managing and maintaining knowledge. Additionally, management was given the list of features
provide by the technicians so they could provide input on the relevance of these requests. The
final outcome of this research is a list of features that the application must have to meet the
organizations needs.

Task 2: Collect a list of quality knowledge management software that

meets requirements.
Collecting a list of knowledge management software that met our contracts needs was
completed by examining the list of software the employees had previously used and
recommended. Additionally, web searches for widely used applications were used in conjunction
with end-user reviews to select software that also meets our needs.
Each of the products found with this method were then given some preliminary research to
ensure they contain the necessary features and are quality applications. This was determined by
reading customer reviews, watching promotion videos by the developer, reading the application
developers sites, and watching videos of the products in use. These initial impressions were then
used to narrow down the list to only contain the applications that stood out and would meet the
organizations needs.

Task 3: Evaluate the selected products and list top products for
recommendation.
Each item on task 2s list was then researched into further. Additional user reviews were read and
opinions gathered. Any unclear items were resolved by reaching out to the companys sales

support. Further web videos of the software in use and web demonstrations were also viewed in
an attempt to evaluate the products applicability and ease of use.

After collection of reviews, the viewing of videos, and comparing products, trails were obtained
for the products when available. The research team, the queue managers, and five selected top
performing technicians were asked to rate each software. These ratings were then used to give
the product an overall applicability rating. The top two rated knowledge management
applications are then recommended.

Results
Task 1: Acquire a list of mandatory and desired features.
Technician Survey Results
The below summary compiles the most common features the technicians listed as necessary,
preferred, and optional for a knowledge management solution:
Technician Critical

Easily searchable by titles, software, and keywords.

Good support for formatting to allow the articles to be easily skimmed
Easy to use and not time-consuming to create articles

Technician Preferred

Ability to access from multiple locations without installing an application so technicians

can access the knowledge base while working field tickets.

Technician Optional

Ability to rate articles as helpful or unhelpful

Management Survey Results

The below results are what management determined to be critical preferred and optional
Management Critical

Collaborate environment so many technicians can easily contribute.

Easily searchable
Easy to use with excellent formatting options
Versioning so unwanted changes can be undone

Management Preferred

Ability to access from multiple locations without installing an application so technicians

can access the knowledge base while working field tickets.
One-time payment model

Management Optional

Ability to rate articles as helpful or unhelpful to allow bad articles to be identified

External customer facing site that allows customers to have access to select welldocumented articles for self-help. These articles should be specifically set to public.

Task 2: Collect a list of quality knowledge management software that

meets requirements
A wide variety of knowledge management software was researched. Below is a list of top
performers that were established that met our established criteria and had positive customer
reviews. Here is an overview of some of the most notable products that were researched.

Bloomfire
Bloomfire is a sales and customer support application with good knowledge management
features. This application is web based and searchable and very easy to use. It encourages
collaboration and identifies subject matter experts that may be able to answer questions.

SmartSupport
SmartSupport is a knowledge management provided by Safeharbor. It is web based with an easy
to use web interface and easy article creation. However, SmartSupports articles lack some of the
better formatting options that will allow a technician to quickly scan articles and identify key
information.

Helpjuice
Helpjiuce is a knowledge management software that is designed to have customers ask questions
and provide the answers. One promising feature is the ability to identify articles that need to be
created by finding frequently searched terms that did not have a helpful article. Unfortunately,
Helpjiuce had very few customer reviews, videos, and examples for quick analysis of the
product.

KPS Knowledge Management Software

KPS is a powerful knowledge management software that provides the ability to create
knowledge articles and provides support to non-technician customers. Unfortunately, KPS
provides very little in the way of videos of their software in action and there are few customer
reviews online. KPS does provide both an installed version and a web access features. It is one of
the few one-time payment solutions. KPS was not easily available to demo and there were few
videos of the actual product in use. Obtaining demo software required filling out support forms
and providing a list of information to the company.

AnswerHub
AnswerHub is a simple easy to use knowledge management software. It has extensive search
features and also identifies and recommends subject-matter experts (SMEs) based on the articles
created. This allows for questions to be directed at specific SMEs for article creation and editing.
AnswerHub had a very simplistic interface that appears more like a wiki than a full powered
knowledge management solution. Notably, this product uses gamification or rewards, badges,
and points to try to encourage people to contribute articles and increase participation.

KnowledgeOwl
The KnowledgeOwl knowledge management software is a powerful software that had over onehundred and eighty customer reviews. These reviews were overwhelmingly positive. One handy
and time-saving feature was the create from existing when creating a new article. This allowed
you to start with a formatted template article to easily create articles that looked similar. This
standardized formatting could help technicians quickly locate information in an article.

eXo Platform
The eXO platform features a per user per moth pricing scheme and the application can be hosted
on the web or purchased as a software as a solution. eXo is more of a wiki than a full knowledge
management solution, but this made it very easy and fast to use. eXo is also capable of
interfacing with Active Directory to allow users to perform a single sign on.

KNOVA KM
The Knova KM application is an extremely easy to use, highly customizable, knowledge
management solution that is used by many top companies. It features excellent analytics and
dashboards for managers to see top contributors. The articles created in this system had excellent
tools to use to format for easy viewing. Additionally, KNOVA KM integrates with our existing
Remedy incident management system.

Final list passed on to next task

Of these products, the following five products showed the best promise and were passed on for a
more detailed and extensive evaluation:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Bloomfire
AnswerHub
KnowledgeOwl
eXo Platform
KNOVA KM

Task 3: Evaluate the Selected Products and List Top Products for
Recommendation.
Each product in the list created by task 3 was evaluated by the queue managers, sample
technicians, and researcher. Each individual was asked to rate the product for four criteria. These
criteria were how collaborative the product was, the ease of use of the product, the search ability
of the product, and the formatting tools available in the product. Each of these criteria were
selected to represent the wanted factors for a proper knowledge management application as
established in task 1.
The queue managers then decided on a weight for each criterion. Since ease of use and the ability
to search were critical to the technicians that would use the product from day to day they were
given a weight of three. Since a collaborate environment was established as a must to encourage
participation it was given a weight of two. The last criteria of formatting tools were less
important that the above criteria it was given a weight of one.
Each persons value was then totaled add averaged for an average rating of all application test
users. These average values were then multiplied by the weight and totaled to obtain an overall
score for each application. The results of this evaluation is displayed in table 1.

Table 1.

Limitation of Study
Due to time constraints, only the most readily available and popular products were quickly
evaluated in task 1. There was not enough time to give all these applications a thorough test and
rating by the test group. This means that a wide variety of products was researched in task one
and the top products with readily available ratings, reviews, and demos were analyzed to make a
quick list for more detailed study. With more time, each of these products could be more
thoroughly evaluated.

Conclusions
The technicians and managers agreed that the software should be easy to use, collaborative, and
easily searchable. The managers preference for a one-time payment model was not represented

in the top knowledge management applications that were available that meet the needs of the
organization. Since this was only a management preference it was not heavily factored into the
research.
Many different applications meet the requirements of the organization, but a few stood out above
the rest. After evaluation of testing software, rating, and rating, it was determined that
KnowledgeOwl and KNOVA KM tied as to the applicability and suitability for our organization.
Both of these products should meet the needs of the organization and allow for effective
knowledge management.

Recommendation
Both KnowledgeOwl and KNOVA KM have been determined to meet the organizations need to
properly manage software and are recommended by the researchers. Obtaining and implementing
either solution will allow our contract to properly maintain knowledge, reduce technician
information searching time, and allow us to be better able to assist customers.
To ensure that we select the single software for long-term use, it is recommended that contact is
made with the each of these software manufacturers and a full trial be obtained for our
organization for widespread testing. The entire organizations IT technicians should be allowed
to use these products, compare them, and evaluate them. After extensive testing and rating, we
can identify the software application that is right for this organization.

References
AnswerHub - Enterprise Question and Answer Software. (n.d.). Retrieved June 26, 2016, from
http://landing.dzonesoftware.com/answerhub-capterra
Knowledge Management Software - Aptean. (n.d.). Retrieved June 26, 2016, from
http://www.aptean.com/products/knova-km
Bloomfire: Sales Enablement & Knowledge Base Solutions. (n.d.). Retrieved June 26, 2016,
from https://bloomfire.com/
Get Fewer Support Emails & More Happy Customers. (n.d.). Retrieved June 26, 2016, from
https://helpjuice.com/
Knowledge Base Software | Knowledge Base Software by Safeharbor. (n.d.). Retrieved June 27,
2016, from http://safeharbor.com/solutions/smartsupport/
KPS Knowledge Management Software. (n.d.). Retrieved June 26, 2016, from
http://www.capterra.com/help-desk-software/spotlight/141810/KPS Knowledge
Management Software/Knowledge Powered Solutions

Open source Enterprise social collaboration software by eXo Platform. (n.d.). Retrieved June 26,
2016, from https://www.exoplatform.com/