BlueSpice

En-active.png De.png



BlueSpice free

BlueSpice free is a free of charge open source company wiki for teams and small businesses. It is based on MediaWiki, the software of Wikipedia (therefore "BlueSpice MediaWiki"). BlueSpice enhances MediaWiki with numerous business-relevant functions (see 5 "Functions at a glance"). However, BlueSpice free is an outcoupling from BlueSpice pro with a smaller range of functions.

Our software is programmed in PHP and can be operated on Windows and Linux systems. The programming code of MediaWiki itself is not changed in order to ensure the upgradeability of the entire system. BlueSpice was published under the GPL v3 license.

BlueSpice pro

Just like BlueSpice free, BlueSpice pro is based on MediaWiki as well. As an enterprise wiki, it is delivered with an extended range of functions with high utility value for enterprises. The software is optimized for use in medium-sized and large enterprises as well as public sector institutions. The functions that differentiate BlueSpice pro from BlueSpice free are (see point 5 "Functions at a glance" for further details):

  • a workflow tool for professional quality assurance,
  • manuals including an export function (PDF),
  • the possibility to work with forms and metadata (semantics) as well as
  • comment and blog functions (BlueSpice Social)


By the way, this test wiki is operated with BlueSpice pro.

BlueSpice editions at a glance

The following table illustrates the differences between MediaWiki and the BlueSpice editions free, pro and farm:

MediaWiki BlueSpice free BlueSpice pro BlueSpice farm
developer Wikimedia foundation and MediaWiki community Hallo Welt! Ltd. and MediaWiki community
Open Source yes yes yes yes
target audience platform for Wikipedia and sister projects, as well as private individuals and smaller organizations company wiki for teams and smaller organizations enterprise wiki for medium-sized and large companies and organizations
use case/s
  • knowledge base
  • online encyclopedia
  • knowledge base
  • management system
  • documentation system
  • organizational manual
  • knowledge base
visual editor plugin yes yes yes
professional search plugin yes yes yes
quality assurance Nein plugin yes yes
manuals plugin plugin yes yes
data analysis / semantics plugin plugin yes yes
BlueSpice Social no no yes yes
subwikis no plugin plugin yes
connections plugin
  • central authentication
  • links to external files
  • working with external documents
  • connection to your enterprise search
  • connection of external data sources
technical

support

community support community support professional support (contingent) und community support
complementary services no
  • installation, migration, updates
  • individual programming (customizing)
  • branding package
  • trainings and workshops
technical provision self installation
  • own server (on premise)
  • external server (hosting)
  • virtual machine
  • docker
flexibility within the scope of the given product step-by-step development of further enterprise functions by Hallo Welt! Ltd.

Use Cases


BlueSpice free

BlueSpice free is mainly used by teams and smaller companies / organizations that need a central knowledge base or are looking for a MediaWiki with more convenience and business functions.


BlueSpice pro

BlueSpice pro is an enterprise wiki for medium-sized and large companies or organizations. Typical use cases are:

Integrated management system (IMS)

An IMS combines individual management systems such as knowledge or quality management to form a system of holistic corporate management. It serves the systematic and structured documentation of processes, structures, information and company knowledge and minimizes misconduct.

Documentation

With BlueSpice, you ensure that your employees professionally document business-critical information and quickly find it when needed. Classic applications are, for example, IT documentation, technical documentation or project and software documentation.

Organizational manual

In addition to facts on corporate development and other organizational issues, an organizational manual often collects information from individual management systems. Quality management, for example, is the source of the quality manual. This can be stand-alone or integrated into the organizational manual.

Flexible knowledge base

When it comes to the organization of operational knowledge and information, BlueSpice can be used to realize knowledge- and information-based offers of all kinds for employees, customers, partners and other interest groups. This includes, for example, online helpdesks (FAQ, best practices ...), solutions for the organization of team and department knowledge or a knowledge base for public relations.


Functions at a glance

Content structuring

Link and organize knowledge like in Wikipedia

Whether classically structured or highly dynamic: BlueSpice pro is the software of choice to optimally manage your company knowledge. You work with exactly the same tools that have made Wikipedia unbeatable: categories, references and links, rooms for protected content, forwarding, templates and much more.

High performance search

Find information quickly and reliably

Search articles and file attachments (e.g. PDF and office documents) with a high-performance fulltext and title search as well as a fuzzy search. Filtering the search results delivers fast and perfect results. You can also find your content by searching and browsing the metadata.

Visual editor

Create and edit appealing articles

Your employees work with a fully developed WYSIWYG editor with table functions and numerous company specific adaptations. You can insert images using drag & drop. Working with links and categories is just as convenient as inserting tags and checkboxes.

Dynamic content

Enhancing articles with functions

Extend your wiki pages with additional features and dynamic content. For example, use search and input fields, add videos, draw flowcharts (e.g. draw.io), add content from other content pages or output metadata in calendar formats, timelines, or charts.

Document management

Direct access to office documents

Add Word, Excel or PDF documents to Wiki articles – multiple uploads, categorization and versioning included. With the appropriate server configuration, office documents can be sorted and edited directly in your Wiki. This is convenient, time-saving and improves productivity substantially.

Reporting

Trace changes to content in a targeted manner

BlueSpice pro provides the unique set of reporting and notification functions from Wikipedia. This allows you to track the latest changes in name- spaces, categories, linked pages or user changes. You can also find content that has not been edited for a long time. Your dashboard keeps you informed at all times.

Export

Process wiki contents externally

With BlueSpice pro articles can be exported in numerous formats: DOCX, XML, HTML and PDF. The „export tables“ function is particularly helpful: Not only tables from articles, but also overviews from the Wiki administration can be converted into CSV or XLXS tables and further processed (e.g. the overview of user rights).

Administration

Manage user rights conveniently

BlueSpice pro makes the administration of your wiki child‘s play. You can set up users, namespaces, groups and rights using graphical interfaces and assign defined roles. As an administrator, you can also rename and merge accounts, copy articles or replace text parts in all articles.

Infrastructure and security

System integration and secure interfaces

„Under the hood“ BlueSpice pro offers important security functions. The connection to a central authentication system (LDAP /AD, SAML) is as self-evident as the provision of APIs. In general, the script language Lua opens up many design possibilities for developers, e.g. the automation of templates.

Personalization

Customizable user interfaces

The user page not only gives you access to your online profile, but also allows you to store notes. User settings help you to configure functions such as notification mails. And with the help of the dashbo- ard and your personal navigation bar, you can get straight to the topics that are of particular interest for you.

Layout and design

Adaptation to your corporate design

We can adapt the user interface of BlueSpice pro to your corporate design according to your wishes. This is done by adapting the BlueSpice skin or by in- troducing your own individual skin. The quickest way to design your wiki is using the FlexiSkin function and adapt the logo, colors and backgrounds there.

Responsivity

Access your wiki on the road

You can search, browse and edit articles in your wiki with your mobile devices such as tablet or smartphone. Or take a look at your latest notificati- ons on the go and stay up to date wherever you are.


The following functions are exclusively included in BlueSpice pro:

Quality assurance (BlueSpice pro)

Coordinate appraisals and approvals

Observe articles and get notified about changes. You can assign articles to specific editors or activate a review and approval mechanism. Further functions such as the resubmission of articles or the marking of an article as „obsolete“ complete the quality assurance.

Manuals (BlueSpice pro)

Easy to create and export

Combine individual articles from your Wiki and create manuals, documentations or instructions including navigation. Export your manuals and add file attachments, a clickable table of contents and a cover page in your individual corporate design.

Data analysis / Semantics (BlueSpice pro)

Linking and reading metadata

BlueSpice pro supports the handling of metadata like no other Wiki. Thanks to simple forms, articles can be conveniently enriched with additional information that can be used elsewhere for queries and diagrams. Typical metadata is, for example, the release date, the date of the last editing or information about the author.

Collaboration (BlueSpice pro)

Discuss revisions in a team

With BlueSpice pro you can discuss changes to an article, follow discussions and collect and evaluate ideas. In a central timeline, discussions are merged and become individually filterable. And in the wiki‘s internal blog employees learn about major revisions, campaigns and news from the author community.

About Us

Idea, history and present

BlueSpice is the result of a multitude of MediaWiki projects. Starting point was the development of a company-wide Wiki for IBM Germany in 2007. The project named bluepedia was initiated by Gunter Dueck. The complementary software components were initially distributed under the name HalloWiki Sunrise. In 2010, the "Hallo Welt! Medienwerkstatt" decided to publish their solution under the name BlueSpice for MediaWiki as free software. Today BlueSpice is a brand of Hello Welt! Ltd, a worldwide leading provider and consultant for MediaWiki solutions. With our growing team of over 20 employees, we serve over 200 national and international customers.

Business model

Our company finances itself by selling BlueSpice pro subscriptions. Various services complement our offer (installation, support, customizing, training ... ). In this way, we ensure that your wiki project is professionally planned and optimally implemented and supported after a successful start. In addition, Hallo Welt! Ltd. supplies project customers to implement highly adapted and individually developed wiki solutions.


Sounds interesting? Let‘s wiki together!

Related Links

Systemvoraussetzungen für den Betrieb von BlueSpice

BlueSpice Helpdesk

Release Notes

Installationsanleitung