Introduction
Standard operating procedures (SOPs) are vital to ensuring employees follow uniform processes that optimize their workflows. Without proper instructions, employees must discover the best ways to complete procedures themselves, which leads to inconsistency and mistakes.
For many years, organizations printed SOPs to make physical training manuals and process documents — but these were unwieldy and difficult to update. Now, most businesses opt for digital SOPs that are accessible online, whether through a cloud folder or an online knowledge base platform like Confluence or SharePoint.
Read on to discover the benefits of digitizing your SOPs and creating documentation that’s easier to draft, publish and maintain.
What Are Digital SOPs?
Digital standard operating procedures are collections of documents that provide detailed instructions on how employees should approach a workflow, procedure or other operational process. They standardize how employees complete tasks to improve compliance and productivity.
Businesses tend to publish digital SOPs on shared knowledge bases or computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) software. Those online platforms then become a centralized database for the documentation and resources employees need to perform tasks.
Digital SOP Benefits
Digital SOPs have many advantages over paper ones, especially when they’re widely accessible. Here are some benefits of digitizing SOPs.
Increased Accessibility
Employees can access digital documentation on any computer or tablet, letting multiple team members work from the SOPs at a given time without needing to share and circulate physical copies. Readers with visual impairments can change the font size and background color to make the instructions easier to comprehend. They might also use screen readers and magnifiers to further improve readability.
Digital Features
Digital documentation has advanced capabilities that paper manuals lack, including:
- Hyperlinks that cross-reference document sections.
- Videos and animations to visually demonstrate workflows.
- Revision history for automatically capturing an audit trail and recording all the changes.
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Smoother Onboarding
Digitizing training manuals and onboarding plans gives managers and new employees a centralized resource for planning their activities, complete with checklists and instructions that update in real time. It’s easier to customize training plans for each new hire, too, as you can duplicate and edit a digital document faster than a paper one.
Easy Collaboration
Most online text editors, like Google Docs, enable real-time collaboration between team members so people can contribute to a document simultaneously. This is far superior to the traditional paper process, which involves editing drafts individually with a pen and sharing them physically.
How To Choose the Right SOP Software
With digital SOPs now standard across industries, various tools have emerged to support their creation and use. When choosing tools for drafting and publishing SOPs, consider these factors.
Device Compatibility
Your SOPs must be accessible from any device type or operating system teams use. This is especially difficult to achieve if your employees work from a specialized or proprietary device, such as a kiosk, mobile device or point-of-sale (POS) system. If necessary, select standard operating procedure software that offers cross-platform compatibility features for maximum accessibility.
Seamless Integration
Look for software that supports integrations with other team tools. It’s ideal if employees can complete their work without ever manually moving content from one tool to another. For example, Scribe lets you export Scribes directly to your Confluence pages, so you don’t need to copy and paste anything into your internal knowledge base. This improves efficiency and reduces potential manual errors.
Authoring Tools
Great SOP management software includes robust editing features like suggested changes, formatting options and standardized text styles. All these tools and more give writers what they need to keep the documentation consistent across your knowledge base. For example, Scribe lets users add tips and alerts throughout their guides. These additions remain visually on-brand with the rest of the documentation to maintain consistency.
Sharing and Permissions
If your documentation contains sensitive or confidential information, it’s crucial to have a strong access management system in place. Whichever platform you select to host your documentation must include features that work with that system. For example, Confluence lets you control user access to your SOPs.
Documentation Templates
Templates give you a significant headstart when digitally transforming documentation because they come with all the styles, headings and formatting you need. You can then write all your processes without recreating the same styles and structures again and again.
To ensure your documents maintain consistency, get all your SOP templates from the same place, such as the Scribe Gallery.
Digital SOP Implementation: 6 Steps
Digitally transform your SOPs into a centralized knowledge base available companywide in six steps.
1. Evaluate Previous SOPs
Examine existing written SOPs and determine how best to restructure your guides in digital form. Identify which formatting options you need for headings, notes and lists and decide how to organize guides in a logical navigation structure.
2. Choose the Right Tools
Select documentation tools that fit all your organization’s criteria, considering needs like editing, collaboration, centralization and automation. Assemble a suite of tools that integrate with one another for a seamless workflow. For example, Scribe is one of the best AI document generator tools, valued not only for its power and functionality but also for its broad compatibility.
3. Digitize Your Drafts
Draft all your SOPs in your chosen text editor tool. Use what you learned from evaluating your previous SOPs to create consistent formatting conventions like clear headings and text styles. Alternatively, you can use Scribe’s AI Text Generator tool to do this automatically. You can check out examples of digital SOPs for some inspiration.
4. Organize Your Knowledge Base
Upload your drafts to your knowledge base platform and organize them into an intuitive navigation structure. Add a homepage that introduces the documentation and provides guidance on how best to use it. You want to achieve a seamless, inviting experience that encourages readers to adopt this new platform, so pay attention to presentation.
5. Publish Your SOPs
Configure the access permissions to ensure the right people can access your SOPs. Then, publish your documents to production. Test the live pages and ask for feedback from peers to get a fresh perspective on formatting, clarity and ease of use.
Here are a few common quality assurance issues to check for:
- Broken links.
- Missing images.
- Incorrect code sample formatting.
- Broken markup (HTML or Markdown).
- Duplicate pages.
6. Train Employees
Send out a memo or meeting invite to share your new digital SOPs with the team. Include access instructions and encourage everyone to bookmark the knowledge base immediately.
Initial adoption is the hardest part because employees grow accustomed to current systems. Position these digital SOPs as a significant improvement over the old system and invite feedback to show you’re open to suggestions.
Seamlessly Digitize Your SOPs
Transitioning to digital SOPs involves significant manual efforts because you’re setting up a new system for the first time. But if you do it right, the labor is a one-time thing. And when you select the right tools and properly integrate them, making updates and adding new SOPs to your knowledge base is simple.
Scribe features automated text generation, which allows you to quickly create new step-by-step instructions. You can then publish them directly on any of the many platforms Scribe integrates with, such as Confluence, SharePoint or HelpDocs. To take advantage of this huge time-saver, sign up today!
