How to Document Processes On Ninety

Processes are how teams align behavior across time and people. When processes are clearly documented and easy to access, teams can execute confidently and autonomously. Organizations risk drift, friction, and inconsistency when they're not defined.

Documenting your team and organizational processes improves transparency, accountability, and consistency. Clearly documented processes remove the guessing game from your team member's ability to get their work done.

Use the Knowledge Portal to document processes to ensure team members can quickly access the tried-and-true, company-approved methods that make your business operate effectively. 

Adding a Process to the Knowledge Portal

The Knowledge Portal is divided into categories, each holding a number of collections. Use the Process category to document, review, and follow your organization's core processes. 

When you're ready to add a new process to the Knowledge Portal, first determine if you need to create a new collection or if it belongs to an existing collection.

Create a New Collection

To create a new collection:

1. Click Knowledge from the left navigation.
2. Click the Edit side of the toggle on the top-right corner of the page.
3. Click the Create Collection card from any of the category pages.
4. Click Edit Collection image to choose a banner image.
5. Click the Process tab.
6. Write a name for the collection.
7. (Optional) Write a brief description.
8. Click Create Collection.

 

 

 

Create a Topic in an Existing Collection

To create a new topic in an existing collection:

1. Click Knowledge from the left navigation.
2. Click the Edit side of the toggle on the top-right corner of the page.
3. Click on an existing collection to house the topic.
4. Click Add Topic.
5. Name the topic.
6. (Optional) Write a description.
7. Click the Add Topic button.

 

 

Knowledge Portal Hierarchy

The Knowledge Portal is a library of content organized by hierarchical folders. The largest folders are categories. There are three categories:

• 90 Resources
• Company
• Process

Each category contains any number of topics, which can contain subtopics and tasks, respectively.

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Tips for Organizing Your Processes in the Knowledge Portal

Well-defined processes that can easily be shared and followed by all have the following characteristics:

• Steps and sub-steps — Every process should be broken into logical, sequential steps, each with clear sub-steps when needed.
• Explicit Owners — Every step and sub-step should have an Owner assigned. Ownership creates accountability and removes ambiguity. An owner can be a specific person, but it should usually be a Seat from your Org Chart.
• Clear success criteria — Every step and sub-step has a straightforward description of what done looks like.

You may need to use an entire collection in the Knowledge Portal for more complex workflows. Otherwise, we recommend organizing process collections around your company's specific function or department of your company. Within a collection, each topic can represent an individual process. Use subtopics to break the process into major steps, and if needed, create tasks within those subtopics to represent detailed sub-steps.

This layered structure makes it easy for team members to find what they need, understand how to do it, and follow the process exactly as intended—every time. 

Creating To-Dos from Topics, Subtopics, and Tasks: Using Your Process for Training and Onboarding

When onboarding a new team member or creating a new process, use the Knowledge Portal to assign the related content to that user in Ninety as a To-Do. Here's how:

1. Navigate to a topic with content you want to assign to a team member.
2. Hover over one of the topic's subtopics or tasks.
3. Click the ellipsis.
4. Select Create To-Do from the popup.
5. Click the profile icon.
6. Click the checkbox of each intended user.

Process Example

The following is an example of how your team could document a sales process using the Knowledge Portal.

Step 1: Create a Collection for the Department/Team Involved

To keep your processes organized and easy to find, create a collection for each team or department that needs to document their repeated workflows.

To create a collection:

1. Click Knowledge from the left navigation.
2. Click the Edit side of the toggle on the top-right corner of the page.
3. Click the Create Collection card from any of the category pages.
4. Click Edit Collection image to choose a banner image.
5. Click the Process tab.
6. Write a name for the collection; we'll call this one “Sales Core Processes."
7. (Optional) Write a brief description — “Processes for sales consultants.”
8. Click Create Collection.

Step 2: Add a Topic to the ‘Sales Core Processes’ Collection

With the collection ready, you can add a topic for each distinct process the team uses.

To create a topic in the new collection:

1. Click on an existing collection — “Sales Core Processes.”
2. Click Add Topic.
3. Name the topic; we'll use “Inbound Lead Qualification Process” for this example.
4. (Optional) Write a description — "How to capture, qualify, and route incoming leads to the appropriate next step with speed, accuracy, and alignment across teams."
5. Click the Add Topic button.

Step 3: Write an Overview of the Process on the Topic's Page

Every topic in the Knowledge Portal has its own editable and shareable page. Use this page to describe the process's objective and provide an outline or overview of the steps and sub-steps involved, including the Seat accountable for completing it.

 The following could be used for the Inbound Lead Qualification Process example's page:

Objective: Capture, qualify, and route incoming leads to the appropriate next step with speed, accuracy, and alignment across teams.

 

Process Overview

1. Lead Capture and Tagging (Marketing Operations).
2. Initial Fit Review (Sales Rep).
   1. Review lead data for scope, location, timeline, etc. (Sales Rep).
   2. Check CRM for interaction history (Sales Rep).
   3. Assign status in CRM (Sales Rep).
   4. Escalate complex cases to the Head of Sales (Sales Rep).
3. Discovery Call (Sales Rep).
   1. Schedule a discovery call with the lead (Sales Rep).
   2. Document discovery call in the CRM (Sales Rep).
   3. Refer qualified leads to finance (Sales Rep).
4. Financial Risk Check (Finance).
   1. Check external credit databases (Finance).
   2. Review prior billing history (Finance).
   3. Rate lead risk (Finance).
5. Weekly Pipeline Sync (Head of Sales).
   1. Generate CRM reports of active leads (Sales Operations Lead).
   2. Share insights (Sales Reps, Finance, Marketing Operations).
   3. Assign Follow-Ups and Process Updates (Sales Operations Lead).

Step 4: Create Subtopics for Each Step in the Process

Since each step of a process could have a different accountable party, document each step as a subtopic in the Knowledge Portal.

To create a subtopic:

1. Click on an existing topic — "Inbound Lead Qualification Process."
2. Click + Add new subtopic on the left side of the screen.
3. Name the subtopic and press the enter key or click the checkmark.

For our example, we created a subtopic for the following steps:

• Lead Capture and Tagging (Marketing Ops)
• Initial Fit Review (Sales Rep)
• Discovery Call (Sales Rep)
• Financial Risk Check (Finance)
• Pipeline Sync (Head of Sales)

Step 5: Describe Each Step in Detail

Use each subtopic's page to fully describe the step in the process, including:

• Specific objective
• What done looks like
• Resources required
• Tools/software used
• Accountable Seat or team member
• Best practices
• FAQs

Example

This image shows the page from the example's subtopic, “Lead Capture and Tagging.”

 

 

Step 6: Create a Task for Each Sub-Step

Sub-steps often have specific details that need to be documented, so subdividing a step's subtopic into tasks is an ideal way to keep things organized.

To create a task:

1. Click on an existing topic — "Inbound Lead Qualification Process."
2. Hover over a subtopic and click the plus sign.
3. Name the task and press the enter key or click the checkmark.

Step 7: Describe Each Sub-Step in Detail

Use the task's page to fully describe the sub-step in the process, including:

• Specific objective
• What done looks like
• Resources required
• Tools/software used
• Accountable Seat or team member
• Best practices
• FAQs