ExactlyHow vs wikis, docs,and recorders.
Notion, Confluence, Google Docs and screen recorders are great at documenting information. This is about finding the current how-to by title, owner, department, team, or job title — and transferring it when someone changes jobs or leaves.
A pile of pages, no owner
Filter by title, owner, department, team, or job title — find it in seconds
It's not about writing pages. It's about what happens next.
Someone is out
Coworkers dig through old messages and guess at the current way to do it.
They open the process in the library and see who owns it and how it's done today.
Someone leaves
Their pages stay behind. Nobody officially owns them anymore.
Their processes transition to a named successor — steps, tools and history included.
A new person asks how
They search a wiki with hundreds of pages and hope one is current.
They search by title, owner, department, team, or job title and find the exact guide.
Two people do it differently
Both think they're right. There's no single documented standard to check.
There's one owned process. Whoever's on point follows the same documented steps.
Different Tools Document Work. ExactlyHow Keeps Operational Knowledge Moving
When someone leaves, covers a teammate, or changes jobs, the work still has to get done. ExactlyHow keeps a named owner on every process, puts the current steps in a library people can find by title, owner, department, team, or job title, and transfers that ownership to the next person — so operations continue instead of being rebuilt from memory.
Ownership transfer
The next person accepts or declines, and the move stays on the record.
Library filters
Find a process or guide by title, owner, department, team, or job title.
Step-by-step guides
Follow numbered steps, not a page of paragraphs.
Free viewers
People who only follow a process are never a paid seat.
Teams & departments
Group people and processes by the team and department that do the work.
User access
Owner, Admin, Editor, and Viewer — manage users without owning every process.
Audit logs
A searchable trail of invites, role changes, process actions, and transfers.
What the operation still needs after someone changes.
A leave, a resignation, a promotion, or a cover shift should not pause the work. These are the capabilities that keep the how-to owned, findable, and followable when the person who knew it is no longer in the seat.
Named owner
Someone is accountable for how the work is done today — not just who created a page. When that person is out, the rest of the team still knows who to ask.
Ownership transfer
The next person accepts or declines. The steps, tools, and attachments move with the process. Operations do not stall while someone reconstructs the how from memory.
Library filters
Find a process by title, owner, department, team, or job title. A cover person lands on the current how-to in seconds, not a pile of similar pages.
Structured steps
Each step says who does it, what they use, and how long it takes — so the next person can follow the work, not interpret a document.
Attachments
Templates, screenshots, and files live on the process. The successor does not hunt a shared drive for the one spreadsheet that makes the job possible.
Free viewers
Viewers never count as a paid seat. People covering a role or checking a step can open the process without a license conversation.
User access
Owner, Admin, Editor, and Viewer. Appoint Admins to manage people without handing them the whole account. Viewers stay read-only.
Teams & departments
Group people and processes by the team and department that do the work. When someone moves, the work stays with the group that has to keep running.
Audit logs
See who invited someone, changed a role, shared a process, or transferred ownership. After a departure, you can prove what moved and who approved it.
Then transfer ownership — no wiki does this part
Frequently Asked Questions
What is ExactlyHow?
ExactlyHow is knowledge preservation and transfer software: organizations document how work is done as owned processes, find them in a process library, and transfer ownership when people change — vacation, leave, role changes, resignations, retirement.
Who is ExactlyHow designed for?
Operations and People teams at mid-market businesses, public organizations and education institutions who need work to keep running when someone is out, changes roles, or leaves.
How is ExactlyHow different from documentation software?
Most documentation tools just store pages. ExactlyHow adds a named owner to every process, a library you can actually search and filter by title, owner, department, team, or job title, and a formal way to transfer that ownership when people change jobs or leave.
A pile of pages is not a process library.Ownership has to move with the work.
Find the current how-to by title, owner, department, team, or job title — then transfer it when someone changes jobs or leaves.
Read the Trust Center