Keep your content safe: A guide to private knowledge base features

Security is commonly top of mind for customers looking for a knowledge base software solution. Sometimes folks know that they need a ‘secure’ knowledge base, but they aren’t always clear on the specific features related to security that they might need.

If this is you, it could be helpful to explore some security-related features that you might need in a knowledge base solution.

Private content options

Most knowledge base software solutions offer some kind of option for making your content private - but those options can vary widely. You’ll want to understand your needs first, to make sure your service provider matches them.

Some questions to ask yourself:

• Do you want your content to be entirely private, or would you like your knowledge base to have a mix of both private and public content?

• Does the software you’re considering charge extra per reader login?

• Are private content options only available on the Enterprise or Business level plans?

It’s not uncommon to have to pay extra for the ability to make content private, so you’ll want to look into the pricing of this feature as you shop around.

Nuanced access controls

Beyond having content that’s private, you might want to serve different private content to different groups of readers.

For example, you might want to have content in your knowledge base (KB) that is only visible to paid customers, some content specifically for the support team serving those customers, and other content that only management can see.

Some knowledge base software solutions allow you to add your readers to different content access groups and choose what those readers can and can’t access within your KB. This option can be useful in many different circumstances, but it isn’t always offered.

Authoring & permission control

Beyond protecting your knowledge base in terms of who can read it, you also may want to consider who can make certain changes to it. It can be useful to think about the different permissions you want the users of your KB to have. You might want to allow writers on your team to create content, but not allow everyone to publish the content or make changes to the design of the knowledge base.

Role and permission options can vary widely among different knowledge base solutions, so it’s a good idea to investigate how much you want to control authoring and editing permissions.

Restore deleted content, article history, and revert to previous saves

These are features that are important for making sure your content is safe. Heaven knows, we can all get working a bit too quickly sometimes and find ourselves having clicked something without really thinking it through. That can lead to accidental deletion or accidentally saving over a previous (better) iteration of what you’re working on.

Some knowledge bases offer the ability to see who changed what and when, as well as the ability to restore to previous save points. This can save your authors a heck of a lot of grief!

Single-Sign-On (SSO) and password access

It’s good to consider how your readers will be accessing any private content in your knowledge base. Even if email and password logins work for you now, you might want to look down the road and think about whether Single-Sign-On (SSO) might be helpful in the future. Not all knowledge bases offer SSO, and many that do only offer it on their highest-tier plans.

Versioning

Versioning can help with the security of your knowledge base in a couple of ways. Allowing an author to create a new version as a draft allows for their work to be checked and published by a supervisor, ensuring the content is accurate. Versioning also allows you to be accountable for previous content in your knowledge base. Having a full history of previous versions of your content can help with compliance, as well as with general confidence when you’re reviewing your content.

Keep in mind that not all Versioning options are the same. Some companies don’t allow you to version in the same article or document. Others don’t let you have a draft of a version saved while keeping the previous version published.

I highly recommend not only checking to see if the tool you’re evaluating supports versions, but also checking what the versioning workflow and functions are. Not everyone needs versioning, but for those of us who do, these are important considerations.

Using your own domain name

Not all knowledge base software tools allow you to use your private domain name for your knowledge base website. This isn’t great for privacy issues, as it lets anyone know what tool you’re using for your knowledge base via the URL. It’s also not ideal for branding if you’re including another company’s domain within the URL. 

Design customization

This isn’t quite security-related, but it is one of our most asked-about features at KnowledgeOwl, so I thought it worth popping in here. You’ll likely want a knowledge base that allows you to customize how it looks. The addition of some company colors and a logo are great, but some folks want the flexibility to be able to make custom changes to the CSS or HTML of their knowledge base to create a beautiful custom branded website. It’s worth checking on this as you’re exploring options to see what is possible in terms of visual customizations of your knowledge base.

A free security feature comparison tool

Now that you have a sharper idea of the features worth considering when looking for the right place to keep your docs, you should hopefully have a quicker time finding the right one for you.

We created a Comparison Tool to show which features different knowledge base software tools offer. It includes all of the above features, as well as some additional features we get asked about a lot. You can download the free tool here: https://try.knowledgeowl.com/security-comparison-tool.

If you have any suggestions for other features we should include in the Comparison Tool, please let us know! You can reach us at hoot@knowledgeowl.com. We always love to hear from our readers!