A modern and very effective way to document your software specifications, a new online software solution for organizing software processes. Today’s software programming has become an extremly complicated thing to organize. Let’s start with the basics: The markdown feature in Docstell is really convenient to use. When a text zone is inserted in to a node you can start typing your markdown right away. When leaving the edit area the text is automatically formatted. The idea with markdown is that it will save you a lot of time when formatting your texts. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, which is then converted to valid HTML. Instead of getting frustrated about how a lot of common word processors format your text in every way but the one you want, markdown is very predictable and easy to learn.

Docstell is also adding functionality to upload various file types to a node. You can upload any type of file and share with you team or keep it in a private node. Just drag it from you computer and drop it on the node you want to attach it to. They added a preview zone that makes it possible to preview files adjacent to your other information. You can view for example pdf, docx, xlsx, csv, txt, png, jpeg and mpeg4 files. If you for example receive a specification in a pdf file format you keep this file here together with the rest of the documentation and will easily be able to preview it and let all your team have access to it.

Docstell uses draw.io as an integrated diagram editor. This means that you can use all the power of this popular tool. Add links to your diagrams for really smart navigation to find more information about an asset that is described somewhere in the documentation. Docstell is a realtime documentation solution that puts the collaborative work in the right place from the beginning. This means that when you need to ask a question or need feedback on your work, you put that adjacent to the source to keep a log of the discussion in the right place. This saves a lot of time both for yourself and your team mates. See more details at Document organizer with diagram editor.

Slack integration was recently added to Docstell. This lets you get alerted in you preferred Slack channel when a person in your team is adding comments to your docs. From the message in Slack you get a link back to the node with the comment in Docstell, this makes it convenient to answer the question in the right context and to build up the knowledge base where it should be. If you don’t use Slack or want to be notified by email we added functionality to mention a user in the comment. Use the @ sign to get a list of users that belongs to the workspace. If this user is not online an email is sent that tells the user that there is a message waiting to be answered. You can configure if emails should be sent in the new user settings dialog.

There is of course a fine balance of what kind of information you should put in a document or not write down at all. It costs money to keep the information up to date where ever it might be placed. But that is not a reason for not putting all your information in one place. Having it in one place will make it a lot easier to keep it updated and keep it concise and coherent. To always have the exactly right information at your fingertips whenever you need it might be a utopian, but I am sure that there are a lot of things that can be made to improve this area immensely.

A new and extremely simple way to document your software requirements, processes and specifications. Built as a zoomable infinite document for really great flexibility, powerful enough to let you define all your complex needs. No more excuses not having your documentation up to date! Find additional details at docstell.com.