Making (converting) an FAQ into a vanilla TW5

[Osin]

Hello,

I'm looking to convert an internal work FAQ housed in a spreadsheet into a mostly vanilla TW5. The FAQ is living and breathing, based on emails and decisions, so it can't fit neatly in a drop-down list. I am having trouble deciding on how to split my data while keeping it fairly user-friendly for users. Guidance and examples are welcome.

So, I've been dipping my toes in TW5 for a while now, and recently started using Drift for my personal needs with some success.

At work, we use an excel spreadsheet to keep track of internal FAQs, which becomes unruly after a while, so I thought I could have a go at converting it into a Wiki. The FAQ would be used by a dozen people of various technical abilities, and I would be keeping it up to date. I was torn between TW Classic and TW5 because we use IE and an out of date Chrome, but it seems that TW5 works fine. I still want to keep it fairly simple,  I might just change the layout into something more "classical" or wikipedia-like so that users don't get too confused.

That being said, I am having trouble deciding on how to split my data and information. In theory, I know what most pieces of the TW5 puzzle do, but it seems I get stuck if I try to put it into practice...

So far, for each table heading, I thought I would use a tag. For the Questions and Answers themselves, though, I cannot decide if I should keep them in one tiddler, or separate. TiddlyWiki philosophy dictates to separate them, but how do I title my tiddlers? Do I need to double-tag the Q and the A? Or just include the A within the tagged Q tiddler? Some questions are rather long, so having the question as a Tiddler title would not work. There is a pre-existing hierarchical structure that could work as a TOC to guide the users. I tried looking for examples that could serve as inspiration without much success.

Thank you

[Mark S.]

I would use the title for a short question, the text field for the full answer, and a "question" field for the full question. A view template for the item would allow the user to see as little or as much as they wanted of the answer. Every tiddler would be tagged as "FAQ" and then tagged with sub-topics. You create a tag tree and then use one of the TOC macros to display the entire FAQ.

That's a whirlwind answer. I'm sure someone will come up with an all-singing, all-dancing FAQ.

[Mark S.]

Side note. I believe MS will be retiring IE next year. Designing anything around it would be counter-productive.

[Osin]

I found this page that is somewhat of an FAQ that could become useful.

When you say "'question field' for the full question", are you referring to the "add a new field" option at the bottom of every tiddler? I will dig into this more.

Re: IE, yeah, no one has much say, it's a very tight and regulated workplace with old tools. I initially considered TWC because I could always convert into TW5, but so far TW5 works. Drift doesn't, for example, which is why I don't want to use plugins and stray away too much from vanilla TW5.

[TW Tones]

Osin,

If this were my project I would need to take account of the way the data is formatted in the spreadsheet, perhaps making an additional worksheet in excel that complies with one row per faq. Then export this as a CSV file, using JSON Mangler, in a utility wiki, to import and convert to tiddlers (In a plugin package) then transfer this plugin package to the new faq TW5. I would then build a view template for viewing both the previous shadow faq's and new ones I create going forward. If you want to modify an old FAQ you just edit the shadow to become a tiddler.

I would set a field such as object-type to faq in the faq tiddlers so I can always list them, I would try and retain dates from the original faq as it can help with data currency eg a really OLD faq may have aged. However you most likely need to reformat the dates found in the spreadsheet.

If you are carful with you design you may even be able to retain the ability to export faq back to csv and import to the Spreadsheet. This would be a lot of effort and depends on how they are currently stored, however it may smooth the adoption of a new solution.

I think tiddlywiki is ideal for this kind of business requirement. Especially with one editor and many readers. An over dependence on organically developed spreadsheets is common, they are fragile, and often become hard to maintain when the author leaves. Unless they have media images, audio and video you can store many thousands of faq's in one tiddlywiki.

I would explain it as using a special smart document, that is published like a website and provides a managed user interface to the FAQ's for both readers and editors including search and categories etc... later it can be used to extract more knowledge from the FAQ's, provision answers for different users and much more.

Do you have SharePoint available?

regrads

Tones

[Osin]

Ooh, thanks a lot for the detailed breakdown Tones.

To be honest, I am not familiar with 80% of the stuff you mentioned, but I remember reading about, so I will dig around and try to put it into practice. Currently the way the data is set up is one row per FAQ with columns for additional information of interest. I thought about just rebuilding it manually (it doesn't seem that large) to learn TW5 gradually, but you've given me a few leads to read about.

We do use SharePoint, but it's not the primary collaborative tool. We use an enterprise cloud solution thing that seems to feed into a shared windows network.

[TW Tones]

Osin,

To be honest, I am not familiar with 80% of the stuff you mentioned,

I thought it better to inform you even if you are not yet ready for it.

 

but I remember reading about, so I will dig around and try to put it into practice.

continue asking questions as needed

 

Currently the way the data is set up is one row per FAQ with columns for additional information of interest.

That is good, makes it easy if wanted. If you install JSON Mangler in a wiki you can import a CSV and generate tiddlers where the fields contain all the columns in the CSV.

 

I thought about just rebuilding it manually (it doesn't seem that large) to learn TW5 gradually, but you've given me a few leads to read about.

Sometimes manually is actually simplest, especially if you wont be doing it more than once. 

We do use SharePoint, but it's not the primary collaborative tool. We use an enterprise cloud solution thing that seems to feed into a shared windows network.

The main reason I ask, is you can use a single file wiki and only you check it out for edit and save otherwise you share a link to the wiki file and people can visit it like an intranet site. If you have a file location where you can ensure only one person is editing at a time.

 

Best of luck

Tones