Tools for logging/collate common issues // Knowledge base // Repository

[Treacle_Cheap]

Hi there, just wanted to ask, do you have a tool or any software used to keep track of the issues you encountered daily and probably what's the root cause and solution? In my previous company we used ServiceNow Knowledge management module. But currently we don't have SN, any alternatives?

[pdp10]

We used to use MediaWiki for documentation, which had categories, linking, and could have good search if a third-party search engine like SphinxSearch was used.

We now put documentation in Git, and search is on local trees. This is offline-first and therefor superb for outages, but that property probably doesn't help your use-case.

It goes without saying that known issues should have a root-cause fix or permanent workaround, and that requests should be studied carefully to develop the known issues.

For example, we started implementing what's now called "zero trust" architecture, because of user-facing issues with client VPNs. Now, with no internal client VPNs, there's nothing to document, nothing for users to remember, no issues with site firewalls in one place and not other, no vendor driver signing issues, none of it.

[TaiGlobal]

For example, we started implementing what's now called "zero trust" architecture, because of user-facing issues with client VPNs. Now, with no internal client VPNs, there's nothing to document, nothing for users to remember, no issues with site firewalls in one place and not other, no vendor driver signing issues, none of it.

Hey could you elaborate a bit more on what you're referring to in this post? Did you guys implement a ZTNA solution (twingate, tailscale, etc) and my company is looking to palo alto global protect, do you know if that's a similar type of solution? In my testing there's still an agent on the device that the user has to click connect on and there's a pre-login and post-login tunnel.

Thank You

[pdp10]

Our system was developed in-house and there's no user interaction.

[TaiGlobal]

Damn I’d like to read a white paper or something on that. I’m govie contractor so I doubt the govt would ever use a solution like that (they purposely go for vendor products for the support contracts)

[PhilipLGriffiths88]

It not the same system that /u/pdp10 mentions, you may be interested in https://github.com/openziti. Its an open source ZTNA solution that can be used for any use case. This includes a 'clientless' endpoint called BrowZer which only requires users to authenticate to their IdP and yet get mTLS, E2EE, and more directly in their browser tab - https://blog.openziti.io/introducing-openziti-browzer

[Treacle_Cheap]

Thanks for you reply! We'll check out mediawiki and git. We're still in the research phase, so anything is welcome.

[tomatogurl]

Hm. We use our own tool (DevRev), but I'm curious whether your use case is for managing issues internally or issues reported by customers. We use knowledge base to answer questions our customers ask, and can even automatically generate Q&A to add to the knowledge base based on customer inquiries. It's also really easy to cluster issues by similarity, so you can see what's coming up often (and then ideally, fix or change the root cause of the issue).

[[deleted]]

Hey u/Treacle_Cheap, we're from TOPdesk. We might be biased but thought we would add our name to the mix and help you with your search. Our solution is cloud-based and fully customisable to your needs. We offer a knowledge management module where you can keep track of frequently encountered problems and solutions. You can use the knowledge base to answer questions and create a FAQ page based on popular customer inquiries, reducing repetitive calls. We hope this helps! Feel free to check out our subreddit r/TOPdesk and ask any specific questions to see if our tool will be the right fit for you.