SolutionsIT foundations

Team knowledge base

Shared notes and documentation that sync to every laptop and phone, with access set per person.

How we deliver it

We agree what lives where, and who can see it.
We set up the shared spaces and move existing documents in.
Each person gets their own login; removing them removes their access.

How it works

A knowledge base is only useful if people can find things in it and trust that it is current. The tool matters less than how it is organised and who can see what. Depending on your constraints, we organise the office suite you already have, set up a hosted service, or run an open-source one on servers you control.

Your constraints decide the setup, not the other way round.

Spaces, and who can see them

Content is split into spaces by audience: personal notes, a space per team, and a company space everyone can read. Each person signs in with their own account, so removing someone from a team removes their access to that space without changing anything for anyone else.

Each space has its own audience, and syncs only to their devices.

Encryption is a choice per space. Personal and sensitive spaces can be encrypted on the device, so the server only ever stores what it cannot read. For shared spaces that would mean sharing one passphrase among everyone, so they usually rely on per-person access instead: leaving the team then needs no secret changed.

Sync is not a backup

Every device keeps a full copy and works offline, then catches up when it reconnects. That is also why sync alone is not a backup: a note deleted on one laptop disappears from every device within moments. Dated copies kept somewhere else are what let you undo it.

Sync spreads every change; only a backup takes one back.

When someone leaves

Removing their account stops their access to every space at once. The copy already on their devices stays on those devices, which is why company devices should also be encrypted and remotely wipeable, through device management.

What decides it

Where the data must live: If client files, contracts or regulated information end up in these notes, where they are stored can decide the setup on its own.
What you already pay for: An office suite usually includes shared drives. Organising those properly can be enough, with no new tool to learn.
Phones and offline work: If people need their notes on a plane, on site or on a phone with poor signal, the setup must keep a full copy on the device and sync when it can.
Per-seat cost against running it: A hosted service costs per person, forever. A self-hosted one costs servers and someone to keep them running. The break-even depends on team size.
Who keeps it running: Self-hosting means updates, monitoring and backups. We can hand it over, or run it for you.

Your stack or ours

On what you already pay for

The SharePoint, OneDrive or Google Drive you already pay for, organised so people can find things, or a hosted knowledge base.

Self-hosted, yours to keep

An open-source knowledge base on servers you own, such as Obsidian with LiveSync, which we run ourselves.

Hand over or run

Your choice, per solution. We hand it over with documentation your team can work from, or we keep it running: upgrades, monitoring and incidents, with one of us on call 24/7.

Proof

We run this stack for our own team, and set it up the same way for yours.

Talk to the person who builds it

Tell us what is slow, stuck, or held together by a spreadsheet. We will tell you what we think in one call, before any proposal.

DanielCo-Founder

daniel@arendal.ca