White papers are divided into two categories, one refers to research and development documents used in development, and other refers to customer-to-customer documents. White papers are not only applicable to SaaS development, they are very common in various fields and can be used helps to record some information within team/company, which is convenient for employees to query. With right method, documents are kept in one place to help employees understand and save time and money.

What is a white paper?

Types of technical documentation

The role of technical documentation

How to write technical documentation

What is white paper?

The basis of technical documentation is a description of content associated with product, including how to use, features and functions of product. This documentation is applicable not only to product developers, but also to various stakeholders, including product designers, sales staff, marketers, and customers. You can use technical documentation for:

Explain how to use product and how it works.

Centralized management of product-related content.

It's easy for team to improve efficiency

Easy search for information

Types of technical documentation Project technical documentation

Project white papers, often used by development teams, explain how to build a product, including detailed steps and processes. It mainly includes project schedule, internal meeting minutes and reports, and content related to product development.

Product white paper

Project white papers are mainly focused on enterprise content, but product white papers are usually aimed at external customers, mainly to briefly introduce users to product so that users can clearly understand how to use product. They can decide this on their own based on technical documentation of product.

The role of technical documentation in improving quality of customer service

White papers provide users with timely information, improve user experience, and promote customer retention. Proper technical documentation can reduce customer frustration and provide timely solutions when customers run into problems.

Save time

According to statistics, many employees have to spend 50% of their time searching for information every day, spending a lot of energy on most valuable work. White papers provide teams with information they need to complete their work faster and better.

Facilitate communication between teams

97% of employees said that lack of teamwork will affect results of their workproject. Technical documents provide employees with a single source of information. Everyone has access to same information and can give different members different management powers and better coordination of work.

Eight steps to create technical documentation

1. Summarize content of existing documents and uniformly change format and presentation of content;
2. Write according to audience, define content structure, display form and build goals, and internal white papers and external white papers should be different;
3. Create plans and sketches to better plan content;
4. Create a document template. Over time, content of team document will also increase. It's better to create a template directly and let staff fill it in to keep content consistent;
5. Select right O&M personnel to write and maintain content;
6. Content creation. Before creating content, gather relevant requirements to make sure content is accurate and easy to read.

Choosing Right Software for Technical Documentation

If you store technical documentation locally, users will not be able to access your content. Online document management software can make it easier for users to access your content. Good technical documentation software needs following features:

Powerful search: Make sure you use software that uses advanced search so that your documents can be found in your knowledge base.

Editorial permissions. A strong permission system is essential to maintain control over your content.

Co-development. Choose white paper software that lets your team collaborate on content before it's published.

Rights management. Manage content rights, control access to content by internal and external staff, and improve governance.

-Online knowledge base software helps enterprises easily create technical documentation/knowledge base/help center with product manuals, etc., and easily create internal and external technical documentation.

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Features and functions: technical aspects

1. Without any programming or design foundation, programming newbies can directly use it to build an enterprise knowledge base.
2. The SaaS online service can be used on web without downloading and entering a URL, and there is little trial and error involved.

Content aspects

1. Internal editing uses rich text editor and Markdown editor, operation is similar to Word, easy to write, multi-terminal adaptation, mobile phone and computer can be used;
2. Multi-level column customization, content classification management, knowledge structure, clear and organized display;
3. The knowledge base display interface is simple and beautiful, and official version provides more than 20 themes for free use and one-click switching according to need;
4. With help of created knowledge base, it is convenient to find content, and you can find relevant content by entering keywords, which significantly reduces time spent searching for information and increases work efficiency;
5. Fast and convenient content sharing, applicable to multiple platforms, click on link to view;
6. Data backup and download, content recording and saving, support for exporting and backing up data in various formats
7. Team collaboration enables multi-person collaboration, improves office efficiency, and enriches and enhances knowledge base content.

Operation and maintenance

Faced with ever-growing volumes of corporate knowledge files, we have to spend a lot of space on content storage. For businesses, they have to pay high fees (storage and maintenance). Using an online knowledge base and online storage of all content in cloud not only saves money, but also provides data protection and management that could not be achieved before.

Data security

In addition to supporting backup and export of data in multiple formats, SSO single sign-on and SSL encryption technology are used to ensure independence and security of customer data from internal editing to external exchange, as well as to accompany your knowledge and documents.