I'm building documentation for employees and customers in one place, how should I set it up?

A good way to do this is to treat it as one documentation platform with two clearly separated audiences: internal employee docs and external customer docs. That gives you one system to maintain, while keeping content safe, relevant, and easy to find.

Recommended setup

1) Create one documentation home, then split by audience

Use a top-level structure like:

• Help Center / Docs
  • For Customers
  • For Employees

Or, if you want a more polished portal:

• Docs
  • Product Help
  • Company Handbook

This keeps the experience simple and prevents customers from accidentally seeing internal material.

---

2) Separate content by access level

You usually want:

• Public or customer-facing docs

  • Setup guides
  • How-to articles
  • FAQs
  • Troubleshooting
  • Product release notes

• Private employee docs

  • Policies and procedures
  • Internal workflows
  • Onboarding
  • HR information
  • Sales/support scripts
  • Internal SOPs

If your platform supports permissions, use:

• Public
• Authenticated
• Role-based access for departments like HR, Support, Engineering, etc.

---

3) Use a shared structure and template

To make docs easier to manage, standardize article format:

• Title
• Summary
• Who it’s for
• Prerequisites
• Steps
• FAQs / troubleshooting
• Related links
• Owner / last updated date

This works for both customer docs and employee docs.

---

4) Build navigation around tasks, not departments

People usually search by what they need to do, not by your org chart.

For customers:

• Getting started
• Account management
• Billing
• Features
• Integrations
• Troubleshooting

For employees:

• New hire setup
• Tools and access
• Company policies
• Team processes
• Support handbook
• Security and compliance

---

5) Add strong search and tagging

A single search bar is critical, especially when docs live together.

Use tags like:

• customer
• internal
• billing
• onboarding
• support
• engineering

If your platform supports it, search should respect permissions so users only see what they’re allowed to access.

---

6) Assign ownership and review dates

Each doc should have:

• An owner
• A review cadence
• A last updated date

That helps prevent stale content, especially if you’re maintaining both employee and customer documentation in one system.

---

7) Keep branding and tone appropriate

Customer docs should be:

• Clear
• Friendly
• Simple
• Self-service oriented

Employee docs can be:

• More direct
• Process-focused
• Detailed where needed

You can still keep a consistent design, but adjust tone for each audience.

---

Best-practice structure example

Documentation Hub
├── Customer Help Center
│   ├── Getting Started
│   ├── Features
│   ├── Billing
│   ├── Troubleshooting
│   └── FAQ
└── Employee Knowledge Base
    ├── Onboarding
    ├── Policies
    ├── Internal Tools
    ├── SOPs
    └── Department Guides

---

Things to avoid

• Mixing internal and external content in the same visible navigation
• Letting everyone edit everything
• Using vague titles like “Miscellaneous”
• Letting articles go without owners or review dates
• Making users click through too many layers

---

If you want the simplest possible approach

Start with:

1. One documentation platform
2. Two top-level sections: Customer and Employee
3. Permission controls
4. Standard templates
5. Search + tags
6. Ownership and review schedule

If you want, I can also help you design:

• a recommended site map
• a permissions model
• or a template for customer vs employee articles