April 14, 2023 by Alexa Uskova • 23 min read • Microsoft Teams
Many companies today use Microsoft Teams, a tool to coordinate their work. It’s really convenient to have meetings, exchange data and collaborate remotely with Teams. It offers you a number of apps and tools to structurize your work. Among them are apps for creating an internal knowledge base.
Everyone understands how convenient it is to have all the data under one roof, share, store and edit data without leaving Microsoft Teams environment. Knowledge base facility allows you to keep all the
In a single workspace, accessible to everyone in your team.
Nowadays, knowledge base solutions are widespread. So, if you're struggling with making up your mind about the app you want to get, in order to make your workflow more organized and easy, we got you!
In this post you’ll get the overview of the most top ranked knowledge base solutions seamlessly integrated in Microsoft Teams.
We do a review of Microsoft Teams apps every year. Here you can find the posts about Best Wiki Apps for MS Teams 2022 and 2021. The market is really abundant, but some apps really have limited functionalities, when integrated in Microsoft Teams environment.
This post is brought to you by Perfect Wiki, a tool that helps you create a database of your company resources right in Microsoft Teams. Try us out for FREE today, no sign-in or credit card required.
This year year we’re bringing you a review of the following apps:
To really give you an in-depth glimpse into each app, we reviewed them based on the following criteria:
Keep on reading in order to know which will suit you the most!
Perfect Wiki is a knowledge management tool that considered every flaw the built-in MS Teams wiki has, and countered it. Our workspace lives right inside Microsoft Teams channels, where you can freely store, share and create company resources for the whole team to refer to.
Key features:
It’ll take you a couple clicks to add Perfect Wiki to Microsoft Teams. You just have to add Perfect Wiki to your Microsoft Teams channel and that’ll be it. Perfect Wiki doesn’t require any time-consuming sign in process. Simply add Perfect Wiki to a channel and your free trial version is ready to use.
On our 14 days Free Trial we offer you an unlimited user pool. As soon as your trial expires, you can opt for a paid subscription only USD 79 a month (for 3 users). See more pricing details here.
Perfect Wiki was originally designed for Microsoft Teams environment. It appeared as a data management tool that fits seamlessly within Microsoft Teams channel system. That really makes Perfect Wiki different from numerous knowledge base solutions that function just as bots in Microsoft Teams.
Using Perfect Wiki it’s really easy to import already existing files into your database
We support the following import options:
You also can transfer all your content from the MS Teams built-in wiki if that’s where you used to keep your content, your previous Perfect Wiki backups and Google Docs.
That’s also really easy. Export your pages or the whole channel in HTML or PDF formats. Find the Export/ Download button next to the page or channel name and you’re ready to go.
One of the advantages of Perfect Wiki is our intelligent typo tolerant quick search. It allows you to look through the whole database, suggesting search results from your pages and files. Perfect Wiki also has on-page search as a pleasant and useful addition.
Perfect Wiki is with you wherever you go! Install the mobile app for Microsoft Teams and find your internal knowledge base right in your phone. You can feel free to edit, view, share your data on the go.
Sure, that’s not a problem! You can assign editing, commenting or read-only status to each team member individually. Those with read-only access will not be able to change content in any way. You can also assign admin and member roles and block users.
All user content is encrypted in transit using TLS 1.2+ with perfect forward secrecy and full GDPR compliance. Our servers are located in the US and EU (Ireland and Germany) and use full disk, industry-standard AES 256 encryption.
On our Forever Free plan we offer you 25 pages/per channel for free with 3 admin users. As soon as you exceed the limit, you can opt for a paid subscription with unlimited number of pages per channel starting from only USD 4 a month (if paid annually). See more pricing details here.
Perfect Wiki appeared as a tool for managing knowledge and data systems. This user-friendly solution really solves the issue of knowledge management for a small team or a large business. Seamless integration with Microsoft Teams allows to keep all the dataflow under one roof without extra sign-in processes and switching between desktops.
Try Perfect Wiki out today, our 14 days free trial with prime features will prove it.
Microsoft Teams built-in Wiki is a tool designed specifically for Microsoft Teams environment.
However, knowledge management isn’t its advantageous side. There’re lots of inconsistencies that can be really disappointing for the users. You can find more details in our review on built-in wiki. Not only that no changes were provided since 2021, also Microsoft Teams recently announced that it’ll no longer support and develop their built-in Wiki system.
Nevertheless, lots of companies stick to the Built-in Wiki solution, as it’s perfectly integrated in MS Teams.
Key features:
As an app that comes in a Microsoft Teams pack, it’s ready to use right after authorizing in Microsoft Teams.
Yes, but that doesn’t make it the best possible knowledge base solution for MS Teams environment.
With Built-in Wiki import is a time-consuming procedure. The only way to transfer your data is copying and pasting the information to the wiki. You can’t upload files or drag and drop them. ANother issue is preserving the format of tables and images - it’s not alway very precise.
Moving forward - export is another paint point for Built-in Wiki users. There's no way to export data directly from the Wiki. The only way is through opening your data with SharePoint and downloading afterwards. You also can export Built-in wiki data using the Perfect Wiki solution.
More detail on topic can be found here: How-to Export Your Content from the MS Teams Built-in Wiki
One of the main flaws in Built-in Wiki is the lack of search functionality. You just have to scroll through your numerous pages manually and look for the key word or a paragraph you need.
Yes, it does. However, it allows you to enter only in read-only mode, without any opportunity to add or edit the content.
Another paint point is inability to control the changes and block the access to editing the content. In case something is altered or deleted, you’ll have to rewrite the content once again, maybe even from scratch.
Wiki data is stored in your SharePoint database, in the folder associated with the wiki’s home channel. More specifically, “By default, it is stored in the SQL Server Content Database associated with the site collection.”
The built-in wiki is free forever for MS Teams users, with unlimited pages and users.
We do not recommend relying on the Built-in Wiki solution for managing your company's data. Its major advantage is integration with Microsoft Teams and free of charge system. For now, MS Teams built- in wiki isn’t supported by Microsoft anymore, together with the lack of major functions as: search, access rights settings and import/export - this tool won’t make a positive improvement for your company’s knowledge management.
In the SaaS industry, Confluence is still one of the leaders. Stamming from the Atlassian family, it includes products for task flow and code management. Although it is a very flexible workplace on its own, what we really are looking for today is a knowledge management solution that functions optimally within Microsoft Teams.
Key features:
The Confluence installation process is a tricky one. The Atlassian landing page is not really intuitively understandable. Also, though adding the Confluence to MS Teams’ channel is rather simple, you still have to go through several stages of the sign-in process in order to get access to the tab.
The way Confluence works with Microsoft Teams remains unchanged. It is still only a bot or plug-in. Confluence pages may be found using a search engine and sent to MS Teams conversations. Also, you can pin a particular page as a channel tab (in read-only mode) and use Confluence to take notes during an MS Teams meeting.
That's it. Main Confluence's knowledge-building tools are more efficient outside Microsoft Teams.
Confluence also appears to have import issues; We repeatedly attempted to upload a Word.docx document from the smartphone but were unable to do so.It was possible therefore to copy the content and place it onto a new Confluence page. The formatting style remained appropriate, however the image preserving mechanism leaves much to be desired.
There are no bulk import options available, no way to obtain your content from the MS Teams built-in wiki, and it doesn't appear that you can upload documents in Web page format.
Confluence's impressive template library might compensate for this drawback, however import dialogue still has to be further developed.
You can export a “space” (sort of a folder of pages) from Confluence in PDF, HTML, or XML format. You can also export separate pages in Word format (including all the formats above).
Confluence offers full-text searching functionality, though it doesn't tolerate typos and doesn't highlight in-text outcomes. Other than that, it accomplishes its goal. You may search for and send links to pages to your channel conversation by searching for them directly from Microsoft Teams, making this one of the few MS Teams connections that Confluence offers.
Confluence does not have a PC or Mac interface, only a web version. It does have a mobile app, and you can open the page you pinned as a tab in the MS Teams mobile app (again only in read-only format).
Yes, here we get the opportunity to set permissions for a certain page or the whole space directly in the Confluence app. The drawback is that permissions settings are available only after subscribing to a paid version, otherwise anyone can freely edit your content and even delete it.
“Today, Atlassian maintains data centers and hosts data in the US, Germany, Ireland, Singapore, and Australia. We provide all customers with secure, fast and reliable services by hosting their content in multiple regions around the world.”
Confluence offers a free forever plan for up to 10 users with limited features and no user permissions. If you need to upgrade your team that’ll be USD 5.75/user a month for the Standard plan. You can get a 7-day free trial of the Standard plan, no credit card required, that’s really a short time span to get to know all the ups and downs of the system.
Get all the pricing info here.
In our opinion Confluence and Microsoft Teams are not a perfect match together.
Confluence still remains a notification bot tool, that’s far from a knowledge base solution. Its best solution is viewing pages in reader mode in the channel tab in MS Teams.
It’s not really user-friendly with all the efforts it takes to create an account and go through the installation process. All in all, it won’t be our top tool to advise MS Teams users.
OneNote is basically a digital version of a notepad and suits well to store company’s notes. We came up to the agreement that it’s a relevantly good niche for small companies, nevertheless we can’t ignore some major limitations of the tool that prevent it from being a properly organized knowledge base solution.
Key features:
It’ll take just a few clicks as OneNote is a part of Microsoft Teams environment. You won’t go through any additional sign-in procedures.
As OneNote is a part of the Microsoft family, its seamless integration is really an advantage. It'll suit for creating a shared access to meeting notes and some major company guidelines. The interface is rather straightforward and understandable.
Here come the issues: you can only copy and past all your data. There’s no import dialogue, moreover attached files can’t be opened directly from the OneNote page.
All in all OneNote offers the only export option - choosing ‘Print’ option and saving the page as PDF. It’s pretty easy, though it doesn't live up to the expectations we had from the knowledge base solution.
OneNote intuitive search is a major advantage. You can easily search through a certain page or the section in general. The search is rather fast and user-friendly.
It’s possible to open your notes from your mobile device in the Microsoft Teams app. Though it's not very convenient to use in terms of interface and functionality, you still have an opportunity to make minor changes to your notes on the go.
It also has a separate desktop app.
Yes, there are two options: “Can edit” or “Can view,” and you can give separate access levels to team members and visitors. Owners remain in “Can edit” status unless you remove someone as an owner in the MS Teams team itself.
To make changes to editing permissions, you need to find the Manage access menu in the web app of OneNote, you can’t do this from the MS Teams tab.
This info isn’t evident or clearly stated anywhere, we had to look for it through several forums on the topic. OneNote data is stored in the Documents folder of your OneDrive account (you get one with your Microsoft 365 subscription).
OneNote is part of your Microsoft 365 subscription, so it’s free forever for unlimited users and pages.
OneNote is a basic version of a digital note-taking tool. It’ll suit an individual to keep track of some chores, but won’t be enough for running a business. OneNote does offer a number of organizing, editing and search functions, nevertheless the lack of import/export dialogues and rather sophisticated permission management can act as showstoppers for many users.
Tettra is a knowledge management solution that works the best in collaboration with Slack. On its own it is really limited in functionality and serves as a question-answer bot integration in Teams
Key features:
As we reviewed earlier, Tettra still functions as a bot in MS Teams chat that searches for page-cards and makes it relatively easy to share.
Tettra is really simple to add. If you have a Slack or Google account you’ll be ready to use Tettra within a couple of clicks. No extra sign-in needed.
Since our previous study, Tettra's integration with MS Teams has remained unchanged. It's pretty much restricted to notification syncing with MS Teams chats and a bot that locates Tettra pages for you. Additionally, access to this integration requires a paid subscription. (and the 30-day trial of the free plan). Due to the need for an API key, users of the free forever plan won't even be able to test out the integration.
In Tettra you can just drag and drop your files in order to import them. The supported formats are: .docx, .md, or .html. All image and tables formatting seema to be preserved neatly. On the other side, bulk files won’t be imported, that's a real drawback.
There’re 2 actual ways to export data:
Tettra offers a full-text search solution that works really fast, moreover, it’s typo tolerant! You can search through the page names and their content as well. One limitation: lack of in-page search to look through the page you’re currently working on.
Here Tettra proved to be not really user-friendly. It has none of the options. You can use Tettra from your PC\laptop, but won’t have a chance to alter your data on the go via a mobile app.
Yes, you can modify the document's permissions to restrict editing to admin and page owners. Furthermore, you can limit who views the document, though it's unclear whether anyone can still move or delete pages. The free version of Tettra does not support permission modifications.
“Both our primary database and all backups are encrypted. All communication across data centers is over SSL. We also use Amazon AWS (Amazon Web Services) to host our database and backups.”
Tettra offers a forever free and two paid plans (Scaling and Enterprise). You can get a 30 days trial version of the Scaling plan for free, that’s a good bonus to try Tettra out, as the forever free plan is limited in features (even MS Teams integration isn’t possible there). All in all, the Scaling plan is $8.33/user/month if paid annually. That’s at least $84/$840 for a team of 10 or 100 respectively. More details are here.
Tettra has a rather intuitive and interactive interface, however it still takes time to work out some basic features, like saving a page or exporting it. There’s no clear onboarding guide for the new users and the limitations in functionality and integrations make it not worth the price.
An information management tool called IntelliWiki was created to function within MS Teams directly inside of channels, that seems pretty efficient for our case. IntelliWiki is merely one of the software projects that IntelliTect, its parent firm, appears to be working on.
Key features:
Earlier reviews on IntelliWiki proved that from a promising solution it didn’t develop into a fully-fledged knowledge base solution. Let’s check again, if there’re some major improvements!
That’s not a big deal. Just add IntelliWiki as a channel tab to your MS Teams channel. IntelliWiki also offers a step-by-step installation tutorial, making the procedure fast and easy.
IntelliWIki was designed as an alternative to built-in Wiki solution. SO it integrates into MS Teams channels seamlessly
There’s still no import dialogue for IntelliWiki. The only way is to add content from built-in Wiki just before the installation, after that - only copy-paste method, that’s not always very gentle with images and tables formatting.
You can choose the wiki export or per page export in HTML or PDF format. To be honest, the export solution was pretty intuitive to find and seems that’s changed since last year.
Pretty easy, IntelliWiki has a full-text search, but there’s no highlighting and it’s not typo-tolerant. On the positive side - the additional on page search.
As IntelliWiki fits into MS Teams environment, you can find it in the mobile app of MS Teams. IntelliWiki mobile version supports the functions of: editing, sharing and viewing the content. Pretty user friendly, though formatting and scaling leaves much to be desired.
Yes, but you can only do this for all team members or no team members at all. No user-specific permissions.
“Data is stored in Azure SQL and is encrypted in transit and at rest.”
Together with the forever free plan (that’s pretty limited in functionality) users can get Enterprise and Enterprise + paid plans.
30-day trial period, no credit card required. After that it automatically downgrades to the free option (will the data be removed? No answer). This plan is also extremely limited: only 1 wiki page and 2 subpages. After that it’s $2/user/month for the Enterprise plan, so $20/$200 for a team of 10 and 100 respectively. However, you do get 5 read-only users per one paid seat.
Get the full pricing into here.
IntelliWiki seems to be the Perfect solution, until one realizes how many minor bugs it contains: errors, blank screens after following the links etc. Not much has changed in the app throughout the years - that doesn’t look really promising. On the positive side we can mention only rather decent search functionality and seamless MS Teams integration. You can give IntelliWiki a try, though it seems it’s not really reliable.
If you've read this far, you likely use Microsoft Teamson on a daily basis for the majority of your work and are seeking for a knowledge management system that will work within it. If so, then just a few apps of the reviewed above will suit you as fully integrated once. The majority of available solutions, even those created for MS Teams, are rather simplified and their major functions are of efficiency outside MS Teams. Also some of them are really pricey, which makes them unworthy together with poor performance inside MS Teams.
If you’re still in search of a really effective solution to keep track of all your company workflow inside MS Teams, then we’re to advise you of the Perfect Wiki. The tool is rich in its functionality and for about USD 79 for 3 users per month you’ll get a fully-fledged knowledge base solution integrated into MS Teams.
No sign-in or a credit card is necessary to try our Free Trial version out today!
Nevertheless, we presented you with an objective overview of several tools that may function better as separate apps. Give them a try with our 14 days free trial in order to make up your mind.
Try out the free versions of the solutions, see what works for you, and let us know in the chat box on this page if there are any other apps you want us to review! Happy testing!
Found this post helpful? Is something missing or incorrect? Either way, let us know in the chat box on this page, we’re always happy to hear from you.
Alexa is a highly skilled Customer Success Manager, dedicated to helping Perfect Wiki customers and creating engaging posts. She is an invaluable asset to the team and always goes above and beyond to provide the best customer service possible.
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