Opus: A novel open source knowledge base

A challenge that companies face today is having an adequate management and communication between departments that make it up, in the same way, with the inclusion of documentation standards and the appearance of new technologies, it is necessary that the entire organization handles the same terms and also have centralized places of consultation. To help overcome this important challenge, the knowledge base, which are the source of reliable information of an organization and where any process can be managed or documented (from product requirements to meeting notes).

The knowledge base is essential in any organization, but it takes higher priority in those with rapid growth. Currently, there are several free and proprietary alternatives that allow us to create a knowledge base efficiently, this time we want to delve into opus that stands out for its intuitive interface and extensive functionalities

What is a knowledge base?

La knowledge base o knowledge base, is the implementation of a special type of database that allows proper knowledge management. These applications allow to collect, organize and retrieve information related to an organization and its processes in a computerized way.

It can be said that a knowledge base is a centralized repository of information, which, depending on the application that implements it, offers various functionalities both to collect the information and to disseminate it among its users.

In general, a knowledge base is not a static set of information, but a dynamic resource that in some cases has the ability to learn (by artificial intelligence).

What is Opus?

It is an open source knowledge base application, developed by zeeshan Ahmed using php and javascript, which allows proper knowledge management. The application enables teams to document what they are, what they do, and how they do it quickly, efficiently, and following IT standards.

The application has spaces that are adapted to each team, department or project, allowing members or stakeholders to create, organize and share knowledge within their corresponding teams.

opus it has a structured hierarchy and a powerful search engine to find what you need quickly and easily. Similarly, it has templates for creating documents that can be shared with other collaborators.

Opus Features

Among the many features of Opus we can highlight:

• Allows you to create and manage Wikis.
• Possibility of creating nested pages within wikis.
• Management of wikis, tags and pages.
• You can make email invitations for team members.
• Powerful ACL to assign different roles and permissions to employees.
• Integration with Slack notifications.
• In-App Notifications
• Discussions using comments
• Creating reusable page templates
• Excellent knowledge base search engine
• Open Source
• And much more.

We can see a gallery with screenshots of the developer below:

How to install Opus?

We can install Opus easily from its source code, with the following steps:

• Clone the official repository of the application

  git clone https://github.com/zeeshanu/opus.git

• Create .env using .env.dist with pertinent information.
• Install the required dependencies

  composer install

• Open the project directory and run the application

  php artisan migrate

• Generate a key for the application

  php artisan key: generate

• Run the database

  php artisan db: seed

What do you think of this interesting application, leave us your comments about it