Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM 4 For Dummies®

Chapter 24. Creating and Using the Knowledge Base

Based on templates and articles, Microsoft CRM's library is called the knowledge base (also referred to as KB) and is a powerful tool for sharing information across your organization and with your customers. The knowledge base can house sales and technical literature as well as provide information to assist your customer service people with the thorniest customer issues.

Templates determine how information is formatted, found, and presented. Articles are the products created when information is stored in a template.

In this chapter, you find out how to create knowledge base templates and articles. You also discover how to search the knowledge base and associate relevant information with other sections of Microsoft CRM.

Organizing Information for Your Knowledge Base

The key to the knowledge base is organization. So announce a staff meeting and order pizza, the ultimate brainstorming food, because that's what this meeting is about — brainstorming and organizing your documentation and processes. If you have a whiteboard (complete with the permanent-marker line that can't be removed), make sure you use it to record ideas and thoughts for the stuff you want to put in the KB, so everyone can keep track of what's brought up. Your task is to organize all the sales and service documents your company uses. Ultimately, these topics become the building blocks for your knowledge base. You should also consider which people in your organization have ...