Knowledge is power – the problem is who can remember it all? That’s why it’s more important today that you have an effective and efficient way of storing and accessing information. One the key roles of the marketing department is to supply the sales people with key product information such as sales sheets, product requirements, frequently asked questions, scripts, etc. Since information changes on an ongoing basis it is helpful for everyone to have a common place to access the latest documentation.
Fortunately, GoldMine has a fantastic tool that is highly under used to help you in this area. It’s called the “Knowledge Base” or the “Info Center.” The Knowledgebase can be launched/opened from the Navigation Panes in the left nav area or from the “Go To” menu in GoldMine Premium and the “View” menu in the classic GoldMine menu found in older versions of GoldMine.
The Knowledgebase has a relatively intuitive tree structure consisting of books, folders and pages. There is both a shared section as well as a Personal section for each user. Books, folders, and pages offer properties that allow Master Rights users to control access from a read and write perspective.
The content related to any folder or page can be viewed in the Knowledgebase native window as well as stored in linked files that are “attached” to any entry. The native content window, which is selected from in the left navigation of the Knowledgebase, supports rich text and HTML, and offers simple editing features.
There is a handy “search” tool that gives users a fast and easy means to find content based on topic name, key words, topic text, and even the name of a linked file. Plus there are a few lesser known features available such as:
- Link a topic to a record in GoldMine – imagine linking a folder about a vendor to the vendor’s GoldMine Record
- Email topic – right click on a page in the knowledgebase and select “email topic” and GoldMine will carry the content of the page into GoldMine’s email client. It can even merge information from the active record if you have merge fields in the topic content window.
- Audit – Let’s you see who and when a topic was added and edited
