Your product is the spine of your organization.

And for every organization documenting the product development, features directory, codes, flow charts, algorithms, schema designs, etc., is crucial for training new hires, future product development strategy, creating investment, sales, and marketing decks.

Documentation can be for API documentation, security, engine, integration, etc.

Now when 70% of the population is working remotely, software documentation tools have become more crucial for the organization's collaboration and keeping up to date about the development of the software.

But with need and challenges comes solutions and, in this case, a plethora of options. So how do you decide which software documentation tool is the right fit for your organization?

Even before you invest or hire any new employee or tool, you check if they are the right fit for your organization and if they can do the task required of them efficiently.

Before you invest in any tool, you do your due diligence:

• Check reviews,
• Check team's requirements
• See if the tool is scalable?
• Does it fit your team's budget?
• Sharing doc
• security
• Sections for different product details
• Additional features the solution provides
• Integration with other tools, etc

Basically, before investing in any tool, you do your research, and your software documentation should be no different. Automation and documentation tools can help businesses thrive, and they do need them to keep up with the time. But without assessing the team's requirements and the optimum use of the automation tools, the organization's failure can be a big reason.

But first,

What is a software documentation tool?

In simple words if we have to say software documentation basically means to document or store and track the growth of the product, team, and organization. And it is not just crucial for technical professionals but for the entire organization. We will see why it is important later, let us first define it.

Software documentation refers to images, texts, video, flow charts, codes, and another set of material and instructions for using the software or solution. Software documentation is of two types:

● User-Focusses: This contains documentation like an instruction manual, integration instructions, features, etc., to help users better understand the product and use it optimally.

● Developer-focused: This contains the software UI/UX designs, design plans, features capabilities, architecture, flow charts, algorithms, codes, etc., to help the developers in the product development plan. It is more technical.

A software documentation tool helps record, store, and share the software documentation within the organization and certain documents externally depending on the use. Usually, developers, engineers are responsible for creating the software documents and are the sole decision-makers in deciding the tool for the knowledge base. While choosing the tool, some tools are focused on documenting needs rather than engineering people's needs. If you need a platform where developers can get into documentation with ease and have the other teams contribute, Document360 is your best- bet right now.

Are you thinking, all this is fine, but is it important to create documentation?

Let us answer that for you.

Why is software documentation important?

Software documentation helps in defining and tracking the roadmap of the product and the business. For a programmer and testers, reliable, detail-oriented product documentation is a must. A good software documentation helps the organization and teams by:

• Clarifying product and business goals
• Documenting architecture, design, and specification
• Knowledge transfer for onboarding
• Collaboration in engineers, developers, and testers
• Project management
• Tracking product development and testing
• Research and development

The benefits of a cloud-based software documentation tool are endless, especially for remote teams and for navigation of business in the digital era. It all depends on how extensive you make the process of updating the knowledge base of your organization. You must have heard that data is the new oil; trust me, my friend, it is true.

Now that you know what you mean by software documentation and why it is important let us see what features you should consider while choosing it.

How to choose a software documentation tool?

Documentation is time-consuming, detail-oriented, and very tedious work. So that whoever views it: developers, testers, customers, media can understand it. So before you start creating a detail-oriented knowledge base for your team, customer, and market, on your choosing software documentation tool, consider the following features:

Security

The business knowledge base is confidential, and saving it on a device or drive can put the documentation at risk for hacking by cybercriminals. That is why storage and hosting should be secure in addition to document sharing. Good software documentation helps in storing the knowledge base of secured, monitored and central solutions.

Custom Dashboard and sections

A good software documentation tool should support section for all different assets of the document like:

• Images
• Codes
• Flow chart
• Embed
• Videos, etc

Along with this, it should also support HTML and Markdown so that the limitations bought on by Markdown when documenting can be avoided. And should be quickly adaptable to DevOps Methodology.

In-Cloud storage

Rather than choosing an in-device documentation methodology, go for a subscription-based cloud-hosted documentation software. Cloud-based documentation software gives the agility to work in real-time with other editors and gives you centralized access for using the knowledge base.

Backup and restore

We all know documentation is a repetitive process. We need to keep adding and removing data from the document as the product evolves or in addition to customer feedback. That is why the editor should have the freedom to edit, store and share as required. And in case of any technical errors, it should support backup and restore options so that there is no loss of any data.

Multilingual capabilities

People all around the world speak different languages. There is a high chance your own neighbor might prefer speaking in a very different language than you do. That is why most of the solutions also provide multilingual support. So why shouldn't it be the same for storing the software documentation?

Your software documentation should consider a localised option for adding and editing multilingual knowledge base documents for different purposes.

FAQ web-page section

FAQ pages are an easy way to solve repetitive customer grievances without any human interference. FAQs are one of the best self-service resolution tools you can provide your customer to improve your organization's customer experience score.

Your software documentation software should support the hosting of FAQ pages in the public domain. It would avoid any extra work required from your team for recreating FAQs.

Scalable

As your organization grows, the chances of your various software documentation like customer feedback, product roadmap, architecture, codes, etc., multiply. Your solution should have storage space or customizable plans to support the growing needs of your organization.

Real-Time Updates

One of the most prominent features required from a centralized software document software is that it should support real-time editing and updates, especially for remote teams. Now that software documentation is technical, it also contains customer feedback, queries, etc. And the team should be able to do so in real-time and get updates of any new documentation changes also in real-time.

Public URL Hosting

Not all software documentation is confidential; few materials are required for the company's branding, sharing with clients, media, etc. Public URL hosting for these documents comes in handy for client, media, and team sharing without the hassle of duplicating or iterating the content again.

Custom site for Knowledge base

To be a thought leader in building trust among the community and prospect publishing non so confidential, trust-building documents and grievance solving material such as FAQ is a good strategy.

A good software documentation tool helps public-facing custom URLs and gives you the freedom to customize your domain or subdomain.

In-app Assistance

However much we want things to be perfect, it is never so. Softwares sometimes ends up having some issue or error, and in such citation, in-app assistance such as a chatbot or a support mail can help your user navigate through the problem on their own. Even if not so, by human or server error or for any other help required by the user, in-app assistance adaptation is a way to go.

Final Thoughts

Using agile, secure, and robust software documentation can make the product roadmap transparent and give the entire organization visibility into the growth map of the company. And if you have not read through the whole blog, just follow the CCE rule; Collaboration, centralization, and ease of use.

And that's it, start your documentation journey!