How to create a private wiki: Steps, Tips, and Examples

Creating a private wiki is like crafting your own digital library. It's a space where you, your team, or your community can neatly organize and share knowledge. Whether for managing company documents, personal notes, or collaborative projects, a private wiki is your go-to solution.

In this guide, we'll walk you through the essential steps to create your private wiki. From understanding your needs to engaging your team, we've got you covered. So, let's dive into the world of organized digital knowledge, shall we?

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Why Create a Private Wiki?

A private wiki is more than just a digital notebook. It's a centralized hub where ideas meet and grow. Imagine having a clutter-free space where every piece of information has its place, easily accessible to those who need it.

The beauty of a company wiki lies in its ability to foster collaboration. It's where your team can contribute, edit, and share knowledge seamlessly. Whether you're working on a project, documenting processes, or storing crucial data, a private wiki makes the process a breeze.

Moreover, the control over who accesses what is in your hands. Unlike public wikis, private wikis offer a secure environment for sensitive or proprietary information. So, creating a private wiki is stepping towards organized, collaborative, and secure knowledge management.

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Understanding Your Needs

Before diving into how to create a private wiki, it's essential to understand your needs and the features to look out for when creating a private wiki for your team. What's the primary goal behind this initiative? It could be anything from team collaboration, project management, to document internal processes. 

Next, consider the scale. Is this internal wiki for personal use, a small team, or an entire organization? The scale will influence your choice of platform and the structure of your wiki. 

Lastly, think about the long-term management of this knowledge base. Who will be the primary contributors and administrators? Establishing a clear governance structure from the get-go will ensure smooth operation and longevity of your private wiki. 

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Choosing the Right Platform

There are several platforms out there to help you build your private wiki. Your task is to find the one that aligns with your needs and goals. But we’re here to help 🙂

Look for platforms that offer easy navigation, robust search capabilities, and user-friendly editor interfaces. It's about making the process of creating, editing, and finding information as seamless as possible.

Another crucial factor is the collaborative aspect. Look for platforms that offer real-time collaboration, discussion, and feedback within your team. 

Lastly, how you can display content is another crucial factor. Some platforms are geared towards text-based content, others excel at handling video or multimedia content, while some offer a great balance for both. For instance, integrating Claap with Notion can provide a rich multimedia experience, facilitating not only text but also video and discussions within your private wiki.

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How to create a private wiki on Claap

Claap offers an all-in-one video workspace. It allows you to record meetings, record your screen for quick video updates, and centralize all video content securely. It's a collaborative video workspace that integrates well with tools like Slack and Notion, making it a potent tool for enhancing your private wiki experience. With features like AI-powered notes, contextual feedback with video annotations, and decision-making with threads & votes, Claap is designed to make collaboration swift and efficient.

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Structuring Your Wiki Effectively

Step 1: Organize your content

Claap allows you to organize your content in three levels: Teams, Channels, and claap videos. This gives you the flexibility to decide on the best framework for your private wiki.

Start by asking its main purpose. Are you building a company-wide wiki, a specific one for you team, or even one for a key customer? 

Depending on the goal, it might make more sense to create a single “team” where all your documentation lives and then organize it by departments (option 1). Or, you might prefer to keep things separated and organize each team wiki in topics, like trainings, product specs, and Meeting notes (option 2). 

We go into more detail on how to think about your wiki structure in this article, have a look!

Step 2: Define Privacy and Security

Next step is to think permissions to control who can add, edit, or consult content within your wiki. Do you want your entire company to access your wiki, or just specific teams? Do you also need to give access to external contractors or clients?

Map out the different permissions you need for your content. Once that’s done, leverage Claap’s workspace structure to give the right access to the right people. Here’s how:

Workspace privacy settings

As an admin, you can ensure sensitive content remains private by restricting the use of public links and setting the default sharing policy to private​​. Bu don’t worry, users without access can still request access to your private content that you can approve or deny. It’s the perfect balance between accessibility and privacy.

Channel privacy settings

Channels are where your content resides. You can create them for any project, topic, or sub-team. By default, all new channels are public, meaning they are shared with all members of your workspace​​.

When you turn a channel private, only you and the members you invite to that channel can access its content.

Claap video privacy settings

Videos on Claap follow the privacy settings of the channel they are associated with. If a channel is public, any Claap video added to it will be public too; if the channel is private, any new Claap video added will also be private.

However, there might be situations where you only want certain people to view a specific Claap video, without giving them access to all the videos under the same channel. That’s possible too: simply change the channel link to private, and decide on a case-by-case which claaps should be public or shared with specific people.

Step 3: Engage Your Team

Adopting a new tool and way to structure information can come with its set of challenges. So we recommend that you organize a meeting to bring your team on-board with the new wiki.

You can explain how the wiki will improve the way your work, get the team’s feedback and answer any questions they might have. Some things to cover:

• Benefits of a Wiki: Explain the advantages of using a wiki, such as centralized information, easy updates, and collaborative editing.
• Functionality: Describe how the wiki works, covering aspects like internal links, accessibility settings, and modification rules.
• Demonstration: Provide a demonstration to showcase the main features of the wiki, helping the team to get a visual understanding of how it functions

The aim is to provide a clear understanding of the wiki, enabling a smoother transition for the team in utilizing this tool effectively in their workflow.

Step 4: Monitor and Adjust

Lastly, you want to make sure you keep your wiki fresh and useful. 

Regular check-ins help spot outdated info while feedback from your team shines a light on what's working and what needs tweaking. 

You can also leverage video analytics to understand engagement and how your wiki is supporting your team's goals. 

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Bonus: The Power of Claap and Notion Combined

When paired together, Claap and Notion become the power duo of the private wiki world. Each bring a unique set of features to the table that we’ll explore next:

What’s Notion?

Notion is a popular platform known for its versatile workspace. You can create wikis, manage projects, and capture thoughts all in one place. It's where better, faster work happens, catering to both individuals and teams. Notion has emerged as a hub where you can centralize your knowledge, making it an excellent choice for creating a private wiki

Why pairing Claap and Notion when creating your wiki?

With Claap, you can easily embed videos into your Notion pages to provide more context on a project. This integration allows you to preview and comment on Claap videos without leaving Notion. Whether it's meeting recordings, user research sessions, or customer calls, having video content embedded within your Notion pages can be invaluable​.