Introduction
This article will serve to help provide familiarity with some of the main functions and features found within your Hudu environment; both at a company-wide level, as well as when viewing an individual space.
We'd highly recommend reading over our Welcome article first; to introduce you to our product and provide a better understanding of Hudu.
Main Interface
The sections below will serve to introduce the main interface that your technicians will see (non-space-specific items). Expand each section for an overview of the feature.
Hudu Dashboard
The Hudu dashboard allows a quick glance at important information as well as helps provide navigation pathways to information. There are two main types of dashboards found within Hudu:
- This dashboard is accessed upon logging into your Hudu environment and can be re-accessed by pressing your logo in the top left corner when on any page within your environment.
- The Hudu Dashboard allows technicians to:
- Customize the background and categories to suit their work-flow;
- Pin favorite items and access your recent for easy navigation;
- View upcoming expirations;
- and offers various other useful categories (which can be re-arranged, or turned on/off); such as:
- My Favorites - This section allows each of your employees to 'pin' specific information in order to allow for easy navigation of this content. Clients and other information can be added or removed from this section at any time (information specific to each Hudu user).
- My Most Visited - Frequently accessed content is populated into this section to allow for easy access to popular clients, KB articles, passwords, and more (information specific to each Hudu user).
- My Recents - Recently accessed content will auto-populate into this section of your dashboard (information specific to each Hudu user).
- Expiring Soon - In order to best manage your clients, this section showcases any items with an upcoming expiration date. The number of days in advance that expirations populate into this section can be changed by going to your user profile >> edit profile >> expiration notifications trigger days (trigger days customizable per user).
- Activity Feed - To monitor employee activity and provide extra security measures throughout Hudu, this section shows what content each employee (and any guests allowed access) has been accessing and when (information is only viewable to admins & super admins).
- Stats - This section contains company-wide statistics highlighting which, and how many, documentation tools your company is currently using; such as the number of active clients, KB articles, assets, etc. (information is available to all Hudu users within your company).
- Overall Process Completion - A graph to visually depict the level of process completion across the Hudu account (information is available to all Hudu users within your company).
- Documentation Quality - Hudu automatically rates each of the clients in your system on a 1-5 scale based on the completeness of documentation categories in Hudu (information is available to all Hudu users within your company).
- Active Integrations - To better monitor when your custom integrations will be next synced, this section shows all active integrations and the next upcoming re-sync time (information is available to all Hudu users within your company).
Hudu Toolbar
Your Hudu Toolbar can be found at the top of every page within your Hudu environment. It serves as the primary navigation tool through your environment. The toolbar contains various essential functions:
- Access to the global client list;
- Access to the global knowledge base;
- Access to your My Vault;
- Access to the Hudu admin area (admins) or the Tools tab (editors);
- Search bar and capabilities;
- Re-sync feature (if integrations have been created);
- Access to our Learn Hudu resource;
- and the ability to customize your profile further!
Your Hudu Toolbar abilities may be limited due to the user role and security permissions placed upon you/your security group.
Inside each “Space”
The sections below will serve to briefly introduce you to the features found when inside of an individual client/company interface - or a “space”.
Information contained within your spaces will be organized identically (standardized cross-client), but all information stored within a single space ONLY relates to that space.
All items talked about below can be found on the left-hand sidebar; when inside an individual client [space].
Core
The core features within an individual space are the Overview page - containing basic information and providing a dashboard for the space; and the Museum - an archive library for the spaces' old and inactive information. Expand each section for an overview of the feature.
Client Overview
Upon clicking into an individual client/company space; you'll be navigated to the Overview page within that client space. The overview page provides a summary of information pertaining to the specific client space.
The overview page also allows technicians to:
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- View and track basic client information and quick notes;
- Manage any ongoing client onboarding processes;
- Track statistics on the particular client;
- and view similar categories and stats to the Hudu Dashboard, but these are specific to the client space you currently reside. These include:
- My Recents: Provides useful links to items recently accessed, within an individual/specific client space.
- My Most Visited: Provides useful links to frequently accessed items, within an individual/specific client space.
- Activity Feed: To monitor employee activity and provide extra security measures throughout Hudu, this section shows what content each employee (and any guests allowed access) has been accessing and when; specific to an individual client space (information is only viewable to admins & super admins).
- Stats: This section contains statistics for an individual client space, highlighting which, and how many, documentation tools your company is currently using; such as the number of active clients, KB articles, assets, etc.
Client Museum
The Museum provides your team with an archive to organize any old and/or inactive client information; each client space will have its own museum. The museum can be accessed by clicking into an individual client space and navigating down the left-hand side menu to the Museum (second tab down).
Items archived in the museum will retain all of their relationships; regardless of if this relationship is to a still-active piece of information.
Each item of client information archived in the museum will be organized per its' specific type:
- Assets: Any individual piece of information stored within a customizable asset layout within Hudu.
- Asset items get further organized in the museum to their respective asset layout.
- Process Templates: Any client process; could be either a parent process template or a child process.
- Articles: Any client KB article(s).
- Websites: Any website URL.
- Passwords: Any client passwords.
Museums (archives) also exist for both your global client list as well as your global KB; these can be found within their respective tabs.
Tools
The Tools found within each client space serve as pre-built documentation features; assisting with storing client credentials and useful KB articles; managing workflows and website statuses, and/or securely providing end-user access to their information. Expand each section for an overview of the tool.
Password Management
Hudu's Password Manager allows your team to create, organize and protect client passwords; while providing the ability to share these passwords securely back to the client when needed.
Our password manager includes:
- Password folders and password tags for organizing and restricting passwords;
- Password and TOTP generation tools;
- PWNED counts;
- an easy-read feature revealing the NATO-phonetic spellings,
- and simple, secure password-sharing options!
Technicians also have the ability to store any personal passwords within their My Vault; this can be accessed on the Hudu Toolbar and each technician will have their own personal vault.
Process Management
Processes are checklists; used to standardize how tasks are accomplished and serve as quick-reference instructions for your team.
Processes can be created at a global level (termed Global Process Templates) so that they can be standardized and re-used across multiple clients. Client processes can also be designated as 'templates' so that they could be used multiple times within a single client.
Additionally, processes offer:
- Real-time status report links, enabling the ability to keep clients up-to-date with task status;
- a simple, WYSIWYG step editor;
- the ability to track completion notes per step;
- and printable versions!
Knowledge Base Libraries
Knowledge Base articles are an incredibly important resource for internal use, as well as for your clients; as they can serve as informational articles, how-tos, troubleshooting guides, and anything else you can think of!
Hudu offers a knowledge base library specific to each of your clients; as well as a global knowledge base. This allows you to:
- Maintain global articles for internal use and for information pertaining to multiple clients;
- Maintain articles specific to the client they may pertain to;
- Link articles (global or client articles) to different assets, passwords, processes, or websites;
- and create a database of shared knowledge for your team and clients!
Website & SSL Monitoring
By providing Hudu with a URL; we'll pull in all of the public WHOIS information to help you and your team track website statuses, name expirations, and SSL certificate expirations. Websites can be linked via the related items tab to other websites, passwords, custom assets, or KB articles; and the expirations associated will be automatically tracked in the respective clients' expiration category.
Expiration Tracking
The Expirations section will automatically track the domain and SSL certificate expirations of any website input into the Websites section, within the same client space.
Expirations can also be manually created for client knowledge base articles as well as for tracking any dates on assets.
External Sharing
The ability to share information is heavily restricted and audited; if you cannot access these features, it is likely because you do not have permission to do so.
Maintaining transparency with your clients about what you do with THEIR information can be an important feat. Hudu offers multiple ways to securely share information directly back with your clients; this could be via:
- The Client Portal: Each client space that you maintain within your Hudu environment has the ability to have a custom client portal created and configured.
- The portal is a read-only documentation system that allows for nearly any type of information to be shared with it.
- Portal members require unique login credentials, and can only have access to a single client portal.
- Portal members are at no extra cost.
- Share Links: Quick-share links can be created for passwords and KB articles and allow you to securely share the information with external end-users who are not allowed/may not require portal access.
- When creating password links you'll have options to choose how long the link should last, as well as whether to include a message, the username, the TOTP code, or have the link expire after the first view.
- KB links share the entire KB article as well as provide a table of contents; they do not include any items that may be attached or linked to the article.
- Printable versions can be generated for nearly any type of information stored within Hudu. This allows you to provide hard copies of individual information.
- Export: Exporting client data can be done via PDF or .csv or you can run automatic exports to S3-compatible buckets (for readable backups).
- Visit our Exports article for more information.
Custom
Everything under the Custom header are termed Asset Layouts. Asset layouts can be thought of as customizable 'categories' that enable the organization of information in your own way; standardized across all of your client spaces. Expand the section to learn more.
Assets & Asset Layouts
Asset Layouts serve as structured, cross-client containers to further organize and store documentation within your client spaces. Creating asset layouts can be done by either starting with one of Hudu's pre-built asset layout templates (which can be customized later); OR by building your asset layouts completely from scratch.
Once created and activated, asset layouts will appear on the left-hand side menu within ALL of your client spaces.
Asset layouts can assist with documenting client configurations and infrastructure; organize information pulled from one of our integrations and/or REST API; and can be linked to relevant content such as passwords, process checklists, credentials, or anything else stored within your Hudu environment!
"Asset" is the term given to any item that is contained within your Asset Layouts. A specific contact could be an asset; or a desktop, a network device, and so on. Assets are organized using fields & cards.
Admin Interface
The Hudu admin area allows admins and super admins extensive customization options and complete control over the environment. The Hudu admin area contains global features for better documentation review and monitoring; the ability to setup permissions/restrictions
For additional information on admin features; visit our Hudu Admin section.