The Knowledge Base is a powerful tool for helping your users manage processes and track steps to resolve or work through various processes through a centralized knowledge repository.
In this vein, the Knowledge Base can also be used to keep records of administration processes and steps in the event that a site administrator is unavailable, the task in question has very long intervals, or the exact steps that need to be performed may not be well known.
Depending on how you have configured your Issuetrak site, there may be additional processes you want to document, not limited to just the examples provided below.
- Use the Knowledge Base to create and store procedures needed to maintain and administrate your Issuetrak site.
- Use Scheduled Issues to create reminders of expiring credentials or settings to have issues created prior to their expiration. These scheduled issues can also contain links to the appropriate Knowledge Base articles, which give the steps that must be followed.
Examples
Below are two common processes that are infrequent to perform and may, due to internal processes, take some time to complete or have easily missed steps.
With the Issuetrak Knowledge Base, it is possible to create a private Knowledge Base article that only users with the permission "Can view Private Knowledge Base articles" or SysAdmins can access.
Documenting processes to update credentials
This article can then include all of the steps needed to, for example, update the Client Secret used for Incoming email, Outgoing email, or Identity Management to work correctly. As a Microsoft Client Secret is good for anywhere between 1 month to 2 years, if the administrator for the Issuetrak instance does not also manage the Entra environment, it is possible the exact steps needed to update this Secret may be forgotten or have a lengthy process may be necessary to get a new Client Secret.
Due to the fact that this Client Secret has an expiration time, it is also recommended to create a Scheduled Issue that creates an issue assigned to either a SysAdmin account or a group that contains the SysAdmin users. This is so that an issue is created stating that the credentials need to be updated prior to the expiration, as well as also containing a link to the Knowledge Base article from above, to walk them through the process of getting these credentials updated.
Documenting how to add new users and / or clients to the site
In some instances, a large number of steps are needed to create a user within the site or multiple areas within the site to allow the user in question to have only the very restricted access they need to their data. In this case, it is also a good idea to create a Knowledge Base article detailing the step-by-step process to create the user and any additional items that need to be created or configured.
As an example, you are adding a new customer to your site, and they will need an Organization, group memberships set, specific permissions for their accounts, and details on how the user logs in. A Knowledge Base article can help keep all of the steps on hand, in the event that the person who would typically do the initial setup for the customers is unavailable for some reason.
In Conclusion
The Issuetrak Knowledge Base is not only a good place for processes, procedures, and documentation for your users. It is also a good place to keep a backup copy of processes specific to your implementation of Issuetrak and your company, allowing the site to be maintained for infrequent processes.
