10 basic questions you need to ask when choosing a wiki

07 Dec 2015 5 min read
Written by Silvia Macovei, Head of Cloud Business

Article updated on 17 February, 2020.

With dozens of easy to use and affordable information management solutions, many companies opt for wikis to store procedures and best practices. Intuitive and fairly simple to use, wikis bring your company the various benefits of organizing information, along with a few others:

  • Preserving critical knowledge, even when key employees leave.
  • Helping your customer service team provide timely problem resolution, resulting in increased customer satisfaction.
  • Speeding up onboarding and the training of new employees by centralizing basic, necessary information.
  • Eliminating email dependency by having all relevant information available on a reliable and intuitive platform. Independent research by Atos Origin highlighted that the average employee spends 40% of their working week dealing with internal emails which add no value to the business. 
  • Offering easy access to data: whether you’re working from a desktop or a mobile device, all you need is a connection to the internet.
  • Bringing to an end the sticky note tyranny and ensuring there are no more out of date, locally stored documents. As soon as documents are updated on the wiki, everyone enjoys access to fresh information, while preserving access to old versions thanks to built-in version control.

Wikis are useful but also varied in terms of features and usage. They can be Open Source or commercial, ranging from basic features to enterprise full-fledged solutions. So what are the top factors you should look at when choosing the best wiki for your company? You can start by thinking about how your wiki will be used and ask these basic questions:

1. Are you looking to open the wiki to the public or will you be using it internally?

Will you be using it as an intranet, allowing your employees to store, share and organize documents? Will some sections be restricted to a specific group of people? Or will you be looking to make it open to the public and allow for editing and contributions? It is important to know the scope of your wiki beforehand and have a clear goal for it.

2. Should the wiki be hosted or installed on-premise?

If you prefer to have more leverage and control over your wiki, you should opt for an on-premise installation. However, this means an upfront expense for the implementation and makes you fully responsible for infrastructure management, back-ups, and upgrades. If you need commercial support to set up your wiki and get it started, the hosted version is the choice. While this implies both lower costs and an increased level of scalability, it also means less control and customization. It is important to analyze the resources and needs of your company to ensure the deployment method you choose is the most advantageous one.

3. Does the wiki have a low entry barrier?

Whether you are looking to use a wiki as a blank sheet of paper to add new data, or import existing information, it is important to ensure it provides reliable data migration options. The new system should facilitate information management, not hamper it.  

4. What is your expected user growth?

Many wiki systems base their pricing on the number of users. While they can start out quite cheap, they gradually become more expensive based on that growing number. Keep in mind the costs to ensure you don't overextend on the numbers of users, but don't limit yourself either - make sure all necessary members of the team have access to the system.

RUN THE NUMBERS FOR XWIKI CLOUD/PREMISE

5. Will the wiki scale?

Even if you want to start with a basic wiki, it is still advised that you ponder its growth. If you anticipate potential expansion, you should be thinking about multi-tenancy and clustering. In XWiki's case, you can start with a simple knowledge base, then add more wikis and upgrade them to undertake more complex projects. With a multi-tenant setup, you can have several wikis running on the same XWiki instance, allowing for an increased level of performance and also, better collaboration.

6. Is the wiki enterprise-ready?

There are many wiki solutions to choose from, but if you want to take information management a step further, Enterprise Wikis might be the answer for you. They go beyond the basic wiki capabilities and offer LDAP integration, Office Import, rights management, extensions, extra security, etc. Great Enterprise Wikis also provide wizards (such as XWiki's App Within Minutes) that make it easy for non-tech savvy users to build basic apps. These features extend the usability of the wiki and give you more choices in terms of adapting it to your specific business needs.

7. Does the wiki have a good WYSIWYG editor and simple syntax?

Basic users will need a simple, yet effective tool to create and update content. A WYSIWYG (“What You See Is What You Get”) editor will make contributing a straightforward process for non-tech savvy users. More advanced users may prefer to use the wiki markup language. When choosing your wiki solution, it is best to keep in mind it needs to provide a seamless experience for both types of users.

8. Do you need localization and does the wiki support it?

If your wiki will be primarily used by non-English speakers, localization is essential to ensure proper functionality. For instance, XWiki is a tool available in over 40 languages, making it a widely usable solution as a result of the Open Source community's contributions.

9. Is it easy to find the right information?

While many wikis provide an easy way to create knowledge, keeping content organized can pose a real challenge. You will want to avoid duplicating content or having pages that are not up to date. Most importantly, you will need timely access to the relevant data. Next-generation wikis allow users to structure, filter and find data very easily through advanced search, custom apps, dynamic tables, nested spaces, tree navigation, tags, etc. These features not only ensure you and your team have access to information whenever and wherever you need it, but also enable you to create a real workspace where collaboration can shine.

10. Is there an easy and reliable way to transition to a competitor’s product or service?

The best way to avoid vendor lock-in is to choose your wiki wisely in the first place and avoid substantial switching costs or staying with a provider you’re not satisfied with. When selecting the provider, make sure to review the security measures, scalability, and reliability of each host type. For example, with XWiki being Open Source, you can easily export your data and go on-premise if need be. This ensures you don't have to deal with license fees, a lack of portability or the inability to customize the software as you wish. 

COMPARE XWIKI WITH OTHER OPTIONS

Once you have the basic needs written down, Wiki Matrix will help you find the best wikis that match your specific requirements. Finally, it’s good to remember wikis will not magically stay relevant. It’s important that once you have decided on a solution and deployed it, you regularly feed it high quality, relevant information. Like gardens, wikis can blossom to bring amazing benefits, but will not flourish to their full potential without the proper care. When done right, an Enterprise Wiki will quickly become the go-to place for employees whenever they have questions or need more information on a topic.

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