Retrieving and structuring content with P2

The easiest way to retrieve information on P2 is with the search bar. As on many websites, it’s an effective way to find information, decisions, and discussions from the past. 

As your team grows, you may think you need a second or  third P2 to manage multiple projects — at Automattic, we have hundreds! But you can organize and sort content on a single P2 and manage lots of conversations in one place.

Start by using tags on all your posts. When creating or editing a post, type a hash symbol (#) followed by a short tag (e.g., #project-management). You can include tags anywhere in your post, but they’re typically listed at the end. You can give a post multiple tags, and tag multiple posts with the same tag, building an archive over time. Then, you can click on any tag to pull up all the other posts with the same tag, making it easy to connect information across different posts.

On the front page of your P2, your team’s posts are displayed chronologically, with the most recent post at the top, much like an activity feed. But you’ll likely want a place to keep documentation that is not tied to a specific time, like static company resources and information that is kept updated over time. For this, P2 has Documents (also referred to as “Pages” in WordPress). To access them, click on the menu icon (three horizontal lines) at the top of the sidebar for a different view, which shows all the documents available on the P2, and lets you add new ones (just click on three dots). In this sidebar, you can access all content available to your team. In your Documents list, you might have onboarding guidelines, expectations for team members, or general instructions on how to do certain tasks. 

And one little tip that we use all the time at Automattic: when searching for a post or document, you may remember who wrote the post you’re looking for, but not its title or tags. Click on the name of your teammate — they’re all listed in the sidebar of your P2 — to view all the posts they have written.

P2 allows you to structure and slice your information in lots of ways! Try different things, and find what works for you.