Hi all,
I am looking for something with which to manage my KB articles.
Looked at Lore http://www.pineappletechnologies.com/products/lore/
but I had a couple of questions for them and have had no response to email sent two weeks ago - and their mail is bouncing now, so have given up on that idea.

We have quite a few articles, plus some flash tutorials, and want to organise them better. Forum-based just doesn't work for us, so looking for something using php/MySQL which we can integrate into our site.

Anyone have any suggestions????

Hello Kamate - looks like you have a content management requirement. Take a look at mambo and xoops - 2 great php/mysql, open source cms solutions.

Hope this helps...

Many thanks, but although I am a great fan of Mambo, this type of cms is not what I am after.
I'm really after more of a helpdesk system, without the helpdesk, if you know what I mean - no tickets, for eg.
Not much happening in the KB area in sourceforge and the scripts I have come across are too focussed on the ticket support side of things, not enough on the KB.

I don't mind paying for a commercial product and quite like the look of Pineapple Technologies Lore, but as they have shown no interest in doing business, I am looking for a good alternative.

I did look at doing my KB using Macromedia's RoboHelp but just cannot justify that expense.

As far as features go, I just want something which makes it very easy for customers to find the articles, articles which can be set to more than one category, the ability for customers to add comments and a quick and easy way for me to link the KB articles and add a glossary. Using php and database driven.
Oh! And with a good search which will give a list of relevant articles.

I've probably gone overboard with providing info, but having done all that work we have to make sure customers can find what they are looking for very easily.

Hello Kamate,

Although it contains a helpdesk componant - you may want to take a look at cerebrus - it is licensed by # of email addresses ( 1 being free) - so - it may be a good fit for you.

www.cerebrusweb.com

Not exactly what you are looking for - but, pretty close - other then that, I am certain others will have more ideas for you.

Originally posted by Kamate
. . . I just want something which makes it very easy for customers to find the articles, articles which can be set to more than one category, the ability for customers to add comments and a quick and easy way for me to link the KB articles and add a glossary. Using php and database driven.
Oh! And with a good search which will give a list of relevant articles. . . That sounds like KnowledgeBuilder (http://www.activecampaign.com/kb/) to me. :)

I like it.

Cool :) I just knew that asking the question here would save me more days of fruitless searching (any of you tried using "knowledge base" in a google search? - sheesh, sorting the wheat from the chaff takes DAYS!)

knowledgebuilder looks perfect for our needs - thank you very much.

Just in case anyone else has been following this thread...
We received a response from Pineapple Technologies yesterday. However, this was over two weeks too late, and following SoftWareRevue's recommendation we had a good look at Knowledge Builder.

We have been playing with Knowledge Builder for the last three days, moving our content over and doing the customisation for our site. It is $10 more than Lore, but does not have the developer's branding showing to the site visitors (a big plus) AND their customer service has been really good.

Pros - good, fast, easily customised, fully featured and very intuitive.
Cons- if you want to use the built-in html editor, this doesn't work from the backend on Firefox (though I understand a fix is coming).
It is also heavily reliant on tables, which makes it less accessible under S.508 & W3C WAI. In my searches, I didn't find any commercial KB software that didn't rely on tables, so this is not a "con" just for Knowledge Builder!

All in all, extremely happy with the product.

Hi Kamate,
Thank you very much for coming back and posting your review. Avery nice review at that. :)

You could also check out DeskPro at www.deskpro.com . It's what we use and it's probably the best HelpDesk system on the market that is web based.

Originally posted by dataplus
You could also check out DeskPro at www.deskpro.com . It's what we use and it's probably the best HelpDesk system on the market that is web based.

In this case, we weren't looking for a helpdesk/ticket system. We have one of those, but we also have close on 100 FAQ/Knowledge Base articles which were becoming too hard to handle.

Both Lore and Knowledge Builder (http://activecampaign.com/kb) have one really great feature that we like - if someone posts a question related to something on the knowledge base, before that question is submitted it comes up with possible answers based on what is aleady in the KB.

IMO, the key to a good knowledge base is usability.
I have just finished pulling all our articles into the new php/MySQL system. This will make it easier for customers to seach for the information they need and will also make life a lot easier for us as out-of-date FAQ's are worse than no FAQ's at all.

There are heaps of helpdesk/ticket systems out there, and some have basic FAQ's, but when you start talking about 100+ FAQ's I think its time to look for a specialised knowledge base system.