How do you document access + tool workflows without repeating yourself 10x a week?

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Affectionate-Cash709@reddit

One thing that helped for us was sharing key onboarding docs through controlled links instead of a big wiki or PDF dump. You can see if someone actually opened/read it, limit access by role, and update content without resending files. I’d recommend HelpRange for this kind of setup... it keeps things simple and people actually click the link.

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hustling-syed@reddit

The 'we have it documented but no one reads it' problem is very common. Written documentation fails because people need to know what they're looking for to find it, and new hires don't know what they don't know yet. What's worked better for me is visual, step-by-step guides that show exactly where to click and what to do. Instead of 'check the wiki for VPN setup,' you give them a guide with screenshots of each step. I built something that converts screen recordings into these kinds of guides automatically. So you can just record yourself doing the VPN setup once and get back a visual guide with all the steps. Takes way less time than writing docs and people actually follow them. Want to test it with one of your common processes? Takes 5 minutes to try. Would love your honest feedback.

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Own_Shallot7926@reddit

The shiny and potentially expensive, ineffective answer is to give an AI assistant access to your documentation to provide those answers based on prompts. Instead of asking you where the credentials are located, they can ask the bot. A more direct answer is to tell engineers that part of their job is learning how to read and write, then document + write up + punish those who can't figure it out. At some point, this becomes a failure to complete job duties and a clear lack of the required skills and knowledge for their position.

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dlongwing@reddit

That's a great way to get your environment screwed up by hallucinated solutions that aren't actually in your docs. There's nothing an AI can do to improve on just documenting your stuff in a wiki or knowledgebase.

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Sasataf12@reddit

If AI is hallucinating, then your docs aren't accurate or comprehensive enough. It's that simple. And AI can vastly improve on just having documentation.

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dlongwing@reddit

AIs are about as reliable as dementia patients: [https://www.bmj.com/content/387/bmj-2024-081948](https://www.bmj.com/content/387/bmj-2024-081948) Do you want a dementia patient training your new employees on how to perform critical tasks? No? Then don't use AI. A search function and the common-sense of your actual human staff will yield better results than an LLM. All you have to do is ask it a question your docs don't answer and it will make up an answer. The highest priority of an LLM is to sound convincingly human. If the answer isn't in your docs, then you don't want the AI answering at all, and if it is in your docs, then a non-AI search would've turned it up. Ergo an AI is just a wasted subscription that adds nothing.

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Sasataf12@reddit

That study is **not** about asking AI models questions about documentation it has access to. It's a cognition test, not a knowledge test. Totally different things. >A search function and the common-sense of your actual human staff will yield better results than an LLM. Nope, it wouldn't. Not even close. Test it yourself. >All you have to do is ask it a question your docs don't answer and it will make up an answer. Nope, it doesn't. Once again, test it yourself. >The highest priority of an LLM is to sound convincingly human. Nope, it's not. >If the answer isn't in your docs, then you don't want the AI answering at all... Yes, you do. >and if it is in your docs, then a non-AI search would've turned it up. Not the point of AI. >Ergo an AI is just a wasted subscription that adds nothing. I suspect you've never used AI.

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dlongwing@reddit

The study is about how LLMs have no grasp on reality or facts. Anyone with any real experience with LLMs knows that they're prone to hallucinating answers to questions. LLMs are tuned to *appear* competent and human, not to provide accurate information. This has been a constant issue with them and anyone willing to do even an iota of research on the topic knows it. You're an AI fanboy. I'm not. I can't convince you that your good personal friend ChatGPT is just an algorithm designed to hoodwink you, and you can't convince me that an overblown chatbot is a replacement for common sense. We won't see eye to eye on this, so it's best to let it go.

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Hairy-Marzipan6740@reddit

seems like a challenge that we all face when jumping from one tab to another. our team (at clearfeed) is doing it something like this: 1. we still maintain our wiki for reference, but when someone asks in Slack, we don’t direct them to the wiki. we deliver the answer *right there*. 2. we automate the everyday stuff questions. simple rule-based prompts or forms handle the routine so that the team is free to focus on real issues. 3. our app automatically logs repeated support questions into collections, surfaces previous answers, and shows trends over time. this means once something’s answered well, it doesn’t come up again unless it’s truly new. it helped us cut repeat queries drastically. 4. our setup means our triage team responds from a single Slack channel but updates post back into the original thread. this cut our onboarding repeat burden significantly and employees don’t feel bounced around.

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TinderSubThrowAway@reddit

"it's in the wiki"

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vppencilsharpening@reddit

I suggest "What keywords are you using to search for that in the wiki?" It directs the next step back to the employee. It tells them they should be searching the wiki. And it give you a better position if the employee complains about IT not being helpful (y*ou want this information to make sure search queries are providing the expected results*). Finally, it's is training the employee that searching the wiki before reaching out to IT is the path of least resistance. And employees generally need to be trained to do work instead of trying to offload everything to IT.

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sryan2k1@reddit

Sounds like you need a FAQ page or a bot that can answer questions. Otherwise a canned response of "The directions are in the wiki" and don't waste your time.

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Superb_Raccoon@reddit

Copilot.

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pmandryk@reddit

This is what AI is for.

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Superb_Raccoon@reddit

Yes, to improve the productivity of skilled labor by answering stupid questions from the unskilled labor.

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pmandryk@reddit

Yep. Nailed it.

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Daphoid@reddit

This. People go the path of least resistance. If you answer their question and add "it's also in the wiki" they will never read the wiki because they have you. Point to the info, ensure access to it is simple, but don't answer if it they're supposed to go there. Now the info better be easy to understand, nicely presented, and right in the face as a new hire welcome page. If it's buried and they have to search the wiki that's no good (specifically for new hires).

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Vino84@reddit

That's exactly what we did in a previous role. I got my team to write articles, even for quick answers, and reply with the link - "The information you want is here *link*". Over time our own knowledge base on the wiki improved and the direct questions became more nuanced, which only meant improving our knowledge base even more.

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Deadpool2715@reddit

What's super useful is tracking visits to your wiki pages, if you require sign in to access you can even do it by department/team for additional insight. Most used articles get reviewed to ensure accuracy or add additional details. Articles that are often linked to but rarely used otherwise probably need better positioning in terms of searchability or where they are in the wiki

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moderatenerd@reddit

Sounds like that's what he's trying to sell

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Alzzary@reddit

This. And an automated mail with a link to the usual newcomers questions

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Illustrious-Count481@reddit

"The directions are in the wiki" and don't waste your time The end.

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vogelke@reddit

Give them a 3x5 card with basic troubleshooting instructions and tell them to put it up near their monitor: 1. If it's an internal question ("request access") look in the Wiki. 2. If it's for an external product (wireshark, whatever) Google the exact error message. 3. For anything else: a. What did you do? b. What did the machine do in response? c. How did that differ from what you expected? THEN ask me. Get rid of the ones who can't follow simple directions.

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McGondy@reddit

2. Is how you get Shadow IT

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Sasataf12@reddit

Step 3 also.

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vogelke@reddit

I understand Shadow IT for dumbass users. If people responsible for user service can't handle (1), write-up and PIP followed by dismissal.

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Tx_Drewdad@reddit

Sounds like you need to automate your onboarding.

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Signal_Till_933@reddit

Is the wiki actually good though? My previous company I basically had to re write the whole fuckin thing cause the way it was organized made sense only to the person who wrote it. Not that everyone should be a technical writer or whatever but may be worth trying to get someone with that kinda experience to look it over.

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tpickett66@reddit

At my company we handle this in two ways: 1. Extensive onboarding documentation that is cross linked with a ton of detailed stuff. 2. [Unblocked](https://getunblocked.com/) plugged into Slack and Notion where it will respond in a thread of a question automatically or when prompted with content from our documentation and links to it.

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NeverDocument@reddit

AI Chat Bots tied into your helpdesk portal, that feeds off your wiki and other helpdesk tickets. Either the users want to learn or they don't. Giving them all the options to self learn the data is important, however if the documentation is there, its' the hiring managers/supervisors job to ensure new hires are trained correctly.

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dlongwing@reddit

That's a great way to get your environment screwed up by hallucinated solutions that aren't actually in your docs. There's nothing an AI can do to improve on just documenting your stuff in a wiki or knowledgebase.

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dlongwing@reddit

It sounds like you already have the solution: A wiki. Train them on the existence/access to the wiki as part of onboarding. Give them write permissions too, and tell them to improve the docs if they see shortcomings (keep changelogs/backups of course, but that's basic to all wikis). If someone keeps coming back to you, ask them "did you check the wiki like we discussed during training?" \--- "Yes I checked the wiki!" (No they didn't, you know there's an article there) "Great, so which section on the ABC page tripped you up then? Can you give me the step from the wiki so I can compare it to your output?" \--- "Umm, no. I didn't." "Then please check the wiki first. We document everything there." \--- "I tried, but XYZ happened when I followed the wiki" "Okay, let's go through it together then." (Either they screwed up the instruction or the instruction needs updating. Either way, assign *them* to improve the article with what *they* would've wanted to see there.) \--- If someone has to ask you for 1 on 1 support 4 times before you'll give them 1 on 1 support... then you've trained them to ask 4 times to get their hand held. Do not answer their questions for them if the question has already been answered. Point them to the docs and do not bend on this. Also, you mention a bunch of possible sources, such as slack chats... stop doing that. There should be a single source-of-truth for guidance to common tasks.

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planedrop@reddit

YouNeedAWiki is pretty good. I've also just used Google Docs that I can link to anytime someone asks. Also it's worth assessing if the questions are pointing towards workflow things you could make better. Like the "which VPN config", your users shouldn't be selecting one, that should just be on in the background and work, they shouldn't even need to know what a VPN is.

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Sufficient_Yak2025@reddit

I see this post once a week in this sub

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NoyzMaker@reddit

KB articles and documentation and then everything question starts with "did you check the KB?"

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m4ng3lo@reddit

I worked in an organization that did monthly. "Knowledge Checks" It was a 15 to 20 minute quiz. And the questions and answers were found directly in the knowledge base. Like literal copy paste, search the knowledge base using the toolbar, or search using related terms. And it brought you straight to the knowledge article that the question came out of. It was a way of reinforcing The end users behaviors of checking the knowledge base. But that wasn't a completely different environment. It was a call center where the business procedure changed and held hands with the technical procedures of what the agents did when they received a phone call. So either the procedural or technical can change on a daily or weekly basis, so it was incredibly important in that kind of a environment. I've always wanted to try to bring something like that into my current and future environments. But it requires a pretty sizable upkeep team to create the quizzes, and maintain the knowledge base, and all that stuff. And requires large buy in from all levels of management. But I just loved the idea so much

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rswwalker@reddit

I have our service desk software send out automated KB article links if certain keywords appear in the subject or body, leaves ticket in pending mode for 24 hours then auto closes it.

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vppencilsharpening@reddit

Depends on how long they've been with the company. Completely new and first few requests: "Hey that information is in the wiki, here is the link and here is how you find that link from the wiki home page" Two weeks in: "It's in the wiki (link to wiki home), try searching for 'keywords you used'". <Test the keyword search before replying> Couple months in: "What keywords are you using to search for that in the wiki?" If they are failing to self-service, start looping in their manager after the first few requests. Any repeat of the same question gets a "answer from last time is still valid" style response. And finally, if they reply to the "What keyword are you using to search" with a valid query that does not provide the expected results, GO INTO HYPERCARE mode. Find the answer, give it to them, then fix it so it can be found easier and then thank them for identifying the problem.

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FlailingHose@reddit

This is the way.

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jmfsn@reddit

You need to define where those things will be. I prefer a wiki, but have used a text file in a server or a repo, a google document or anything else you can think. Second is that you and your team adopt the following mantra: send a link, not an answer. Whenever one of you get asked, make sure the answer is in the pre-agreed location (even if you have to add it there) and then send the link to whoever asked the question. In a few months you'll be surprised how useful the documentation is.

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