15-Minute Reviews :: DoyleSoft Knowledge Base v2.4b74

Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is DoyleSoft Knowledge Base version 2.4 build 74 by DoyleSoft – A knowledgebase application to help you store you and your business’ most commonly-asked questions and their answers.

Software Description

As Giveaway of the Day states:

“DoyleSoft pioneered the world’s easiest to use Knowledge Base program. DoyleSoft Knowledge Base can rapidly search through megabytes of information, easily annotate articles, track the use of articles, and Distribute information to others in your company or to other organizations.

DoyleSoft extends its ease of use with: an open database design, network ready, and flexible licensing. Knowledge Base is fully licensed for 20 computers! Customizable categories, users, and layout make Knowledge Base worth the download!”

Quick Pros

• Customize some of the wording in the application
• Printing works well; Forms an HTML page and prints from there
• Does provide an adequate number of fields for typical usage

Quick Cons

• DB path has to be changed by ‘EditPath.exe’; No file browsing functionality in ‘EditPath.exe’
• Can’t delete the first record until after you create more
• Accidentally click ‘New’ instead of ‘Save’ while working on a new entry and you get an error and application closes
• Images are not stored in application; Require to be stored as files and linked to
• No file browser for ‘reference’ or ‘images’; Have to hand-type in all the files’ locations
• Have to click ‘save’ to save an article before navigating away; No warning if you try to close/navigate while changes made
• Search function does not lend well to speed of lookup
• Application promptly closes after you click the ‘Ok’ button in the ‘Found (x) knowledge Base article(s).’
• Application appears to ignore the first user you put in Users

Expansion

This application does have a few handy aspects; The ability to customize some of the field names is handy to help with employees understanding the application. It is nice to see an adequate number of fields but would be nice if the interface was customizable for layout. The print function is interesting as well; It exports the records as HTML and prints from there.

The bugs are atrocious. From small trivial things such as not being able to delete all the records (You get the error ‘Knowledge Base can’t delete the article because it is the ONLY Knowledge Base article. Delete will leave Knowledge Base in an unstable condition. Delete process stopped’); To every time you search, the application states it finds x number of articles, and then when you click ‘Ok’, it closes the whole application, even if it only found one article; also, if you are working on a new record and you accidentally click on ‘New’ instead of ‘Save’, or you accidentally click new twice, you get ‘Run-time error ‘-2147217836 (80040e54)’: Number of rows with pending changes exceeded the limit.’ error and the application closes; To top it off, the application also appears to ignore the first user in the list of users as well. This is what I just found in a few minutes of usage. What other bugs are lingering? I don’t currently have the ability to test this on a network with multiple access of the database.

On top of this, there is functionality issues. Throughout the entire application, there is no use of a ‘Browse’ box to make looking for files easier. You have to hand-enter every single path to files, from trying to get the application to work with the database file outside of ‘C:\Program Files\’ (Say your primary drive is I:\ instead of C:\ or you are working on a network for example,) using ‘EditPath.exe’. As well, the ability to include images and a reference file is hampered by the lack of ‘Browse’ functionality and the fact that if you ever plan on using it on a network, you have to remember to use the network file path as opposed to the path, say, relative to the DB file. Most logically I would have hoped the application would have allowed you to store files right in the database or at least the application handle the file management aspect for you. The search function requires you to choose a field to search from as well as then enter the information. This is awkward at best to manage, and definitely doesn’t lend to speed for use in say a small call center.

I am sure there is more issues, but I ran out of time trying to work out this application. I do worry about the use of the MDB file in a network situation; It would have made more sense for something that is geared towards businesses to use a business-class database format (*SQL of some form.) Also, if this application is geared towards multiple users, it may have made more sense to be able to lock out editing, creating and deleting except for administrators (Or KB authors.) Mad employee, and your whole DB is gone. In a network situation, you can’t simply disable ‘Allow network users to change my files.’ either, because of the application’s need to write out the lock file.

Final Verdict

After using this application and seeing the bugs I see, I do worry seriously about data integrity and database performance when the database gets larger and the number of concurrent users increase. While the application is ‘geared’ towards a business situation, there is no security from an employee deleting a record on accident, or worse, (intentionally or not) deleting the whole database. The fact that there is no browse-for-file functionality in any level, requiring hand-entering file locations is a serious deterrant. While free, I would not recommend getting this application until it matures more.

Furthermore, its licence and how it is portrayed bothers me. The website states that it is $3.95 per user, flexible licencing, but you are forced to purchase 20-seat license for $79 with no options for more or less seats, and no visible option to add more licence or if buying a second licence would get you 20 more on the same application (If you even wanted 40 concurrent users is another question.) It is not flexible licencing and should not be advertised as such. 20-user licence for $79 option only is not flexible. With this application in the condition it is in, I could not recommend using it, period. Depending on your needs, I would recommend using either a small wiki, an intranet site package or similar to manage this aspect or hunt around some.

Posted by BladedThoth on Tuesday, May 08, 2007