Can anyone help suggest a solution / way to create a database of information?

[Areyoureadynow]

I manage a small team who provide phone and email advice about a large range of products.

Each product has a LOT of information about it, ranging for how it’s installed, how it’s tested, its physical characteristics etc.

All workers have a different way of responding to enquiries, the more diligent keep emails / information in private files, some prefer to try and remember all the information. There’s notes in peoples private notebooks, stuff written down on datasheets etc, it’s all a bit of a mess. When someone has an enquiry that they don’t know the answer to it’s shouted out in the team and often there’ll be differing information called out to answer.

Im concerned that some information about the product will be superseded and become redundant but be inadvertently given to a customer. We have access to up to date information on our website but there’s a lot of danger of people keeping old emails, notes etc.

I can think of creating a large excel file with a tab for each product where all information can be collated but then that would need regular auditing to check information is still relevant.

Does anyone use a clever platform to store information that you can make changes to, where it has proper functionality to manage change?

I sure there must be something out there but I’m stumped!

I think you're looking for a content management system of some kind, that will identify which pages haven't been updated in x months, so that you know which ones need to be reviewed? There's obvs no practical way to remove that human element of performing auditing, but you need a list to work from.

My first thought was Notion - https://www.notion.so/ . Like many of these tools, it's not particularly cheap for business users, but it's very flexible and it definitely does know when each page was last updated.

I would use a Microsoft sharepoint list (not on a personal account but in a teams team). You can set different views for and documents etc can be attached to the records.

If your company has the Microsoft package - it'll be completely free.

We use One Note and it works fine. Needs to be weeded and looked after periodically but it's easy to share info plus fairly decent to search too.

Amazing thanks guys. We do have sharepoint so maybe that’s a good system to look at first

Hello! Thanks for the suggestion, OneNote looks exactly like the type of thing I’m after.
Reading around the subject though it seems that you need a Microsoft account. I’ve had a look on my works PC today and it is there but if I go ahead and create a notebook can I add other team members with a works emails address? I don’t want team members logging in with personal email addresses from the security point of view.

Ooh now you're asking a question!! I'm not sure. We use it via teams so sign-in using our works email address. I'll have a look tomorrow to see if I can work out how it works.

I’d tell the team to look at your website with the up to date information on the product while giving out advice. All you need is to ensure they have split screen or dual screens, a basic search and find in page functions to pull up the right info on your web site quickly, and are using headphones with microphones so they can talk hands free.

Otherwise, you are putting all this effort into keeping not only your website up to date but some extra system of notes about what is already on the website,

Any fix any team member invents that isn’t on the website, or any error they discover with the website, they can submit a change request to get the website added to or corrected in the right area for the product to whoever is your sys admin for the website.

I am assuming the website is not the public version, but a private intranet version for the team to use rather than a customer oriented pared down public version?

No, the website is the public facing version, that probably shows 20% of what there is to know about the product, the rest we usually are verbally explaining over the phone or by email (there’s just way too much to include on our website).

Our product range is large, it would be too much to put on a website (website is big enough as it is).

Thanks, we also use teams so hopefully it will work. I was able to download the one note app to my desktop yesterday so I’ll have a little play and see if I can create a notebook, save it and share with a colleague to test. I’ll also check with IT that it’s secure to use it in this way.

You can create notebooks in OneNote which can be shared within a team so long as you all have the same network access. We use one in our team, it works well so long as it's kept up to date.

They shouldn't really be using personal email at work should they?

Microsoft have Dynamics which is basically a CRM which you can connect to Outlook. You can use as many or few of the features as you like, and it has plenty of room for these kinds of notes.

Or good ol' Sharepoint

Ok, I mean on a secure intranet website, not the public version.
HTML is a very convenient way to store information, and most employees don’t need training to navigate it.
But sure, if you’d rather not that is your call.

Thanks again, I’ve tried onenote properly today and all members of my team are able to access it without entering any email address so somehow it’s obviously already set up for us to use if we want to.
Ive invited team members and they are able to add to the file. It’s excellent and exactly what I was looking for! ☺️