You’ve decided to switch how you create and share documents in your company. Recently, you’ve been looking at ScreenSteps and you are leaning towards using our knowledge base to create a one-stop-shop for all your company’s documentation.
Now you’re wondering, what will happen to all our existing documents? Do we have to start from scratch? No, absolutely not!
Losing all that hard work you’ve put into your prior documenting would be a worse feeling than when your parents used to throw out the countless pieces of artwork you brought home in elementary school.
At ScreenSteps, we provide ways that you can migrate your existing content into your ScreenSteps knowledge base so that you don’t lose the hard work you’ve already put into documenting your procedures.
As Head of Consulting, I’ve worked with hundreds of companies to migrate their existing documents into ScreenSteps. It gives them a solid launching pad so that they can optimize their content and take advantage of ScreenSteps’ searchable knowledge base.
So, how long does it take to migrate content?
In this article, I’ll first go over a general timeline for how long it will take you to migrate content into ScreenSteps. Then we’ll go over 3 factors that affect that timeline, making it a shorter or longer process for your company.
How long does it take to migrate content into ScreenSteps?
For some companies, they are done migrating content in as little as 2 days. For others, it can take up to 2 months to migrate content on their own. When you hire the ScreenSteps team to help migrate your content, it is done in 2-5 business days.
Ultimately, 3 factors affect how long it takes companies to migrate their content into ScreenSteps:
Note: Sometimes your existing materials are very inaccurate/incomplete. Often, that is because your procedures haven’t been updated over time. Importing them may not take very long, but getting them up-to-date and ready to use may take a very long time.
That’s why we recommend optimizing your content after you have uploaded it into ScreenSteps. While optimizing your content can slow down your timeline to launch, it pays off in the long run.
3 factors that affect your content migration timeline
Many factors that affect how long it will take to migrate your content into ScreenSteps. Whether you will be able to migrate your content in 2 days as opposed to 2 months, depends on these three factors:
1. How much content you have
Obviously, the number of materials you need to bring in will affect how long it takes.
If you have hundreds of documents and multiple manuals to upload into ScreenSteps, it is going to take longer than if you only have 50 documented procedures to upload.
In short, more documents equals more time.
When it comes to manuals, you have to account for the time it takes to break each chapter and section into its own article. You separate manuals into smaller sections so that it is easier for your employees to find the procedure they are looking for at the moment they need it.
2. How formalized your procedures are
Do you have one way to complete a task across your company? Or does every employee have their own way of completing routine jobs?
When you document your procedures, you set a precedent for how tasks should be handled.
If you need to organize a committee to decide exact processes and procedures, launching ScreenSteps will take more time. In the end, it will be better for your team to get everyone on the same page, especially if your company is scaling.
If they have relied on tribal knowledge in the past and each worker has their own way of doing things, then your committee can help merge those ways of handling tasks into one optimized process.
You can skip this step if your procedures are already formalized and move directly into migrating content.
3. What format your materials are in
The content migration process is different depending on which format you have your existing documents in. Depending on which application you’ve stored your information in, the migration process will be low or highly labor-intensive.
While you could choose to merely upload your existing content into ScreenSteps (like you would do with SharePoint), we recommend not doing that. When the procedure text isn’t in a ScreenSteps article (but is uploaded as an attachment), your employees won’t be able to search using keywords (like they would using Google). The text needs to be in ScreenSteps articles to be searchable.
🔍 Related: How Long Will it Take to Launch ScreenSteps at My Call Center? (+ 7 Steps for Launch)
How to migrate content for 8 common formats
Here are 8 of the most common format types and how to upload the content in each of those documents into ScreenSteps.
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1. Word documents
Word and Google Docs take the least amount of time to upload into ScreenSteps because they directly import into the software. It uploads and formats like a Standard Article into ScreenSteps. An individual Word document takes minutes to load into the knowledge base.
Before uploading a Word manual into ScreenSteps, you’ll want to break down the manual into different sections. As you break down your articles, you’ll want to import them in sub-sections and organize the content on your ScreenSteps site. In ScreenSteps, importing looks like:
- A Word manual is a ScreenSteps manual
- A section in the manual is a ScreenSteps chapter
- Sub-sections in the manual’s section will be a ScreenSteps article
2. Google Docs
Google Docs are similar to migrating Word documents. With Google Docs, you have an added step. First, you have to download your Google Docs as Word files before uploading them to ScreenSteps.
3. Excel
For Excel files, migrating content is more of a hands-on task. There currently is no way to directly upload the content in these documents into ScreenSteps articles.
You’ll need to copy and paste the text in these files in order to realize the benefits of ScreenSteps’ searchable knowledge base. However, the process is still easy.
4. Wiki
Like with Excel, you will need to copy and paste your content over from your Wiki articles into ScreenSteps.
Alternatively, you can use the ScreenSteps API import to migrate your Wiki content into ScreenSteps. This is a more technical approach and will require somebody from your team who is familiar with APIs to manage this task.
5. Emails
While you also can copy and paste any documentation your team leaders and experts have sent in emails, the added difficulty is that it may be challenging to track down the emails you need.
6. PowerPoint
When migrating your PowerPoint content, there are two options: (1) copy and paste or (2) export the slides as PNG files.
Your first option is the same as Excel, Wiki, and emails. It involves copying and pasting all your instructions from your slides. Unfortunately, the disadvantage is that you will have to fix formatting issues as you transfer your information. You’ll have to adjust the layout to match the flow in your PowerPoint slides.
The second option is you can export slides as PNG files and upload them to ScreenSteps. Since these are essentially uploading the content as images, the disadvantage with this option is the content isn’t searchable. You will need to add text for the content to be searchable.
7. PDF
PDF and flowcharts are the most labor-intensive because documents are locked. PDFs require you to copy and paste text, take screenshots of the images (unless you have them saved on your computer), and fix any formatting issues.
Luckily, with ScreenSteps integrated screen capture, the screenshots automatically upload into the article.
8. Flowcharts
As with PDFs, there is no easy way to copy and paste the information in your flowcharts. This requires you to type out the information from your charts and add it to your ScreenSteps article.
The good news is that flowcharts lend themselves well as an outline for a Workflow Article. In your flowcharts, you’ve already outlined the questions and decisions your employees need to make. This makes it easier to organize in ScreenSteps.
How to get additional support for content migration
Migrating content into ScreenSteps is essential to filling your knowledge base. It sets you on solid ground to build your knowledge base. And there are many ways to migrate that content over from your existing documents.
While it can be intimidating to switch all your content into ScreenSteps, there are many ways to smooth the process.
One of those ways to ease the migration process is to hire the ScreenSteps team to migrate content for your company. While it can take your team 2 days to 2 months to migrate content, our team will complete the task in 2-5 days. This way you can move on to optimizing your knowledge base and preparing for launch.
If you need help migrating content, talk to a member of our team to see if ScreenSteps could help you migrate your content and achieve your launch deadlines.
