How to decide whether to make knowledge base content public or private

In today’s fast paced business environment, users demand instant access to information, making a well-organized knowledge base essential for any organization. A knowledge base is a central point for storing and distributing information about your product and services. It can be either internal or external.

By offering a user-friendly interface and a smart approach to grouping data, a knowledge base makes sure that information is easily accessible. This boosts areas such as decision making, problem solving, and productivity in organizations.

A problem many companies face is deciding whether their knowledge base content should be public (accessible to anyone with an internet connection) or private (with controlled/limited access). This decision drives a lot of other decisions about information security, customer experience, and intellectual property.

As with a lot of these decisions, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution because situations and needs differ, but this article discusses approaches that can be used to optimize and create the best knowledge base solution for an organization’s needs.

Creating a framework for your knowledge base

To make an informed decision on whether to make your knowledge base content public or private, the best way to handle this is to create a well-structured framework that determines the best approach for the content. Once that is complete, a decision can be taken on what type of knowledge base it should be. 

The framework should consider the following factors: 

• Audience Needs: It is important to identify who benefits from the content. Public content caters to a wide audience, while private content is only applicable to certain groups.
• Information Sensitivity: Assess the sensitivity of the information and determine whether the content is confidential and should remain private. 
• Competition: Evaluate whether the release of information to the public could provide competitors with an advantage, and if so, consider keeping it private.

Once these factors have been considered, the content should be categorized according to specific criteria: 

• Sensitivity: Assign rankings such as high-sensitivity and low-sensitivity, with high sensitivity content status given to internal processes and confidential information, and low sensitivity status given to general FAQs and starter guides. 
• Competitiveness: Information that shows organization strategies should remain private while general industry knowledge can be public. 
• Use: Content that offers assistance to the wider public such as troubleshooting tips and general how-to guides can be part of public KBs, while content that is intended for internal use should remain private.

Knowledge bases could also be defined based on the target audience for content. Different audiences have different needs: 

• Potential Customers: Information that highlights product benefits and testimonials to attract potential customers are examples of public knowledge base content.
• Current Customers: For current customers, content can fall into different categories. User guides and regular FAQs can be public content, while detailed support documents and advanced tips that only customers should be able to use should be private content.
• Stakeholders such as Employees, Partners, Investors should have access to private content such as product roadmaps, marketing resources, and training materials. 

An example framework showing content categorization based on these criteria is shown in the table below:

Pros and cons

With an established framework in place, it is important to understand the advantages and disadvantages of both public and private knowledge bases to make an informed decision.

Public knowledge bases

Advantages

• Information is accessible to everyone, allowing knowledge to be shared easily.
• Public knowledge bases allow for community contributions, leading to diverse perspectives and continuous feedback and improvement opportunities.
• Public content aids SEO rankings, driving more traffic to your website.
• A public knowledge base also helps to build trust and credibility with customers. Great documentation shows that your organization knows what it is doing.
• Saves cost on individual customer support. It doesn’t eliminate the need for customer support, but you can reduce the workload for human support staff because customers can find many answers on their own in your public knowledge base. You can also train AI support bots on your documentation to further reduce the workload for human support staff.

Disadvantages

• Competitors may gain an advantage by having access to your knowledge base and potentially gain insights into your strategies and operations.
• Information might be misused and interpreted wrongly without proper context.
• Publicly accessible information could expose sensitive information and lead to various security risks.

Private knowledge bases

A private knowledge base is one that is only accessible to certain individuals or groups. It usually requires authentication measures such as login credentials or secure access controls.

Advantages

• There is controlled access to information, ensuring better security for sensitive data.
• Private content is tailored to a specific group of people, making it more relevant.

Disadvantages

• As this information is not available to the general public, it limits the spread of useful information to people who may need it.
• Dedicated resources (time and personnel) are required for creating and maintaining the documentation.

Both public and private knowledge bases have their unique strengths and weaknesses, and the best type of knowledge bases to use greatly depends on the specific needs of a given organization.

Embracing a hybrid model

Public or private knowledge bases are great because they help to clearly distinguish which content should be public or private. However, more organizations could benefit from embracing a hybrid model that combines both approaches.

If a knowledge base was intended to be either all public or all private from the start, there are often documents that do not belong in either. For example: 

• Product Release Notes highlighting new features and improvements should be a public-facing document for users and potential customers. However, technical details of the release or beta release notes should be private for internal teams or select customers.
• User Guides: Getting started guides can belong in a public knowledge base, but advanced user guides for specific features likely belong in a private knowledge base.
• Code samples and product documentation could also fall into both public and private knowledge base categories.

By implementing a hybrid model, organizations can strike a balance between providing accessible information to a wide audience and protecting sensitive data and intellectual property (IP).

Conclusion

Deciding whether to make a knowledge base public or private is a critical business decision that requires careful consideration of various factors, including audience needs, competitiveness, information sensitivity, and security implications. By establishing a framework for categorizing content and understanding the pros and cons of public and private knowledge bases, organizations can decide on a structure that aligns with their business objectives.

Continued monitoring and regular audits of content accessibility levels are important, as technology continues to evolve and organizational needs constantly change. Scheduling regular content reviews, implementing feedback loops, keeping up with version control, and robust authentication mechanisms such as single sign-on are steps to take to further enhance the effectiveness of your knowledge base strategy.

There’s no simple solution, but with a little planning and effort, organizations can create knowledge bases that have the right balance of accessibility and security to grow customer trust and drive business success.