The end of the year is approaching.
In your Teachme Biz environment, have you noticed Manuals piling up, outdated Manuals left as they are, or your Folder structure falling into disarray?
Why not make decluttering your Manuals one of your year-end clean-up tasks, so you can start the new year fresh and ready to work?
This article explains how to take stock of your Manuals and determine which ones are no longer needed.
Understand the As-Is (current state) and sort what to keep from what to discard
Just like cleaning a desk or cabinet, start by taking everything out and sorting what to keep from what to discard.
You can export a full list of Manuals across all of Teachme Biz as a CSV. When you want to clean up a specific area, exporting By Folder is convenient.
There are various ways to sort what to keep from what to discard, but here we will share a recommended method that we also practice internally.
1. Apply filters
Open the exported CSV file and apply filters in Excel.
2. Exclude non-released items from the decluttering targets
The "publish_status" field tells you whether a Manual is Currently Released, so set it to show only "published" items.
This narrows down your decluttering targets to only those that are currently released.
3. Decide on your decluttering criteria based on whether a Manual has been viewed within a certain period
"Whether a Manual has been viewed within a certain period" is an important perspective when decluttering.
The following fields indicate recent Views:
- views_within_a_year: Views within 1 year
- views_within_6_months: Views within 6 months
- views_within_3_months: Views within 3 months
- views_within_a_month: Views within 1 month
- views_within_a_week: Views within 1 week
For example:
- If something has not been viewed even once within the past year, determine that no one will view it anymore.
- If something has been viewed fewer than 10 times within the past 3 months, determine that demand for it is low.
Set rough criteria that suit your organization's environment.
4. Review each Manual that meets the decluttering criteria one by one, and decide what to do with it
Open each Manual using the "url" field and review its contents. Once you have decided what to do, add a column in Excel and write down your decision (e.g., Archive it, move it to a different Folder, update its content, etc.).
5. For Manuals you have decided to Archive, check their Usage Status individually just to be safe
Follow the Manual below to check the Usage Status of each Manual individually.
Check detailed View status and Search keywords records for a Manual (Web Browser version)
The key point is to check whether the Manual you plan to Archive or delete is linked from anywhere. If there is a source link, also check whether the linking Manual is outdated, and make corrections such as removing the link.
If there are no source links, go ahead and Archive it without hesitation!
As they say, if you haven't worn a piece of clothing in over a year, you probably never will.
Please refer to the Manuals below to try moving Folders or Archiving.
Get to work in a clean environment
In this article, we introduced features you can use to declutter your Manuals.
Just as it feels good to work in a tidy room, keeping Teachme Biz organized reduces issues such as "following an outdated Manual and making mistakes" or "not being able to find a Manual," and improves overall work efficiency - so please give it a try!