Knowledge Base & Project Diary

Two features in S3Suite help your team build and retain institutional knowledge: the Knowledge Base for resolved issues and best practices, and the Project Diary for day-to-day notes and decisions.

Who can access: The Knowledge Base is cross-functional - Engineers, Production Managers, Operations, and Admins can all read and contribute. This is intentional: institutional knowledge becomes valuable when it crosses team boundaries. The Project Diary is engineering-scoped - Engineers and Admins can write, others can read.

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Knowledge Base

The Knowledge Base is a searchable library of resolved issues, root causes, best practices, and how-to guides. It grows over time as your team documents what they learn.

What goes in the Knowledge Base

• Root cause analyses from completed RMAs
• Solutions to recurring problems
• Best practices for manufacturing or testing
• How-to guides for common procedures
• Lessons learned from production issues

Adding entries

There are two ways to add entries:

1. From an RMA - After completing a 5-Why root cause analysis (see Operations Suite), click Save to Knowledge Base. The symptoms, analysis, and resolution are saved automatically.

1. Manually - Go to the Knowledge Base section, click New Entry, and write it up from scratch.

Organizing entries

• Categories - Group entries by topic (e.g., "Power Issues," "Connectivity," "Manufacturing Defects")
• Tags - Add searchable tags for flexible filtering (e.g., "battery," "rev-c," "supplier-change")

Searching

Use the search bar to find entries by keyword. Results match against titles, descriptions, root causes, and tags.

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Auto-Suggest

One of the most powerful features of the Knowledge Base is auto-suggest.

How it works:

1. When you create a new RMA, you describe the reported issue
2. S3Suite automatically searches the Knowledge Base for entries with similar symptoms
3. If a match is found, the suggested resolution appears right in the RMA form

This means your team does not start from zero every time a device comes back. If someone solved the same problem six months ago, their findings surface immediately.

Tip: The more entries you save to the Knowledge Base, the better auto-suggest becomes. Make it a habit to save every resolved RMA.

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Save to Knowledge Base

After completing a root cause analysis on an RMA:

1. Open the completed RMA
2. Click Save to Knowledge Base
3. Review and edit the entry if needed (add extra context, adjust the category)
4. Save

The entry is now available for the whole team and will appear in future auto-suggest results.

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Project Diary

The Project Diary is a per-project notebook for capturing everything that does not fit neatly into other modules.

What to put in the diary

• Notes - Meeting notes, phone call summaries, quick observations
• Decisions - "We decided to switch from CR2032 to CR2025 because..."
• Links - References to external resources, datasheets, competitor products
• Milestones - Key dates and achievements ("First 100 units shipped" or "FCC certification received")
• Issues - Problems you are tracking that do not warrant a full RMA
• Ideas - Feature ideas, improvement suggestions, things to try in the next revision

Using the diary

1. Open your project
2. Go to Project Diary in the sidebar
3. Click New Entry
4. Write your note, tag it, and save

Pinning important entries

If an entry is especially important (e.g., a critical decision or a safety note), pin it to the top of the diary. Pinned entries are always visible, so the team does not have to scroll through history to find them.

Tip: Use the diary during board bring-up. Document what worked, what did not, and what you would do differently. This is invaluable when starting the next revision.