We are often asked whether it is also possible to set up a wiki or a knowledge base for Microsoft Teams. Technically this is not a problem, the greater challenge is likely to be the editorial support and updating of such a wiki so that it develops into a valuable information resource for your company.
In another article we have already described how you can set up a simple wiki directly in Microsoft Teams . However, the Microsoft Teams wiki is rather limited in its functions. You can set up a wiki with more extensive functionality with SharePoint Online in a modern design and then integrate it into Microsoft Teams.
In the past, reference works were equipped with an index and a subject index. With the full-text search integrated in Teams/SharePoint and categorization of the wiki entries via metadata, this work is no longer necessary. All content can be conveniently found using full-text and metadata searches.
A wiki must be created in a site page library . This already exists when you create a modern site.
You can then assign metadata to this website page library by adding the appropriate columns or properties to the library, for example one for “Department” and one for “Tags”. This allows articles to be easily categorized later.
The uniform look of all wiki entries is guaranteed using a template that is created as a new website page and equipped with a suitable layout and appropriate page properties.
If you now create a wiki page from the template, you can set the properties:
In this way, each wiki page can later display exactly those properties that correspond to its metadata, for example the name of the department to which an article refers.
On the start page of the wiki, the articles can be accessed via tags or by department. A list of the most viewed items is also possible:
For example, if you are looking for information on the topic “Office 365”, click on the tag “O365” and you can select the appropriate article from a list.
The breadcrumb navigation at the top of the screen takes you back to the start page of the wiki.
In addition, a workflow can be used to ensure that only checked and approved content is published in order to put a stop to the great chaos and prevent, in extreme cases, employees in the company from publishing content in the wiki as they please.
Users also appreciate it when they can tell if an article is outdated or actually provides up-to-date information. This can be set via a “Validity” property.
An up-to-date and clear wiki is a contribution to efficient knowledge transfer in the company. We would be happy to support you in setting up your company wiki and expanding a company portal!