Don’t Fear Migration! How to Successfully Move Docs to a New Tool¶
Description
As Documentarians, your users, whether they are internal (like your customer support team) or external (like your customers), will always need simple and fast access to your documentation, no matter what tool(s) you’re using for your docs. But what if you and your users need to move to a new tool because the old one’s painful and frustrating to use? Migrating documentation can feel overwhelming, especially when so many people rely on it, and the expectations are high.
The good news is, migration doesn’t have to be scary. Using a recent experience where we had to migrate Customer Support’s knowledge from our old tool (Confluence) to a new tool (Guru) as an example, this talk will go over the 7-step process of how anyone can migrate their docs as smoothly as possible:
- Use a project plan to track work, manage time and keep stakeholders updated.
- Audit your docs so only updated and useful content is moved over.
- Establish a foundation with a set information architecture and a structured search/tagging system.
- Break up the work into blocks.
- Develop a launch + training plan to make the change easy on your users.
- Migrate the documentation as planned.
- End of the project with a retrospective and report for closure.
Doing all this preparation is key to a successful migration to the new tool, so you’re able to anticipate and overcome any barriers that arise and complete your project deliverables on time and on budget. A successful migration means your users are more empowered and educated to find docs in your new tool; your stakeholders are happy; and most importantly, people are finally reading your valuable documentation!
- Conference: Write the Docs Portland
- Year: 2020
