Panviva vs Shelf

by Gralio Feb 23, 2025

Panviva and Shelf both offer knowledge management solutions, but cater to different needs. Panviva excels in guided workflows and integrations for complex customer service scenarios, particularly in regulated industries. Shelf prioritizes ease of use and broad knowledge access for customer-facing teams.

At Gralio.ai we help to simplify your decision-making process by offering detailed, side-by-side software comparisons like this one, to help you confidently choose the tool that aligns with your business goals.

This comparison was created by analysing 229 reviews and 60 websites, saving 1 hour, 46 minutes of reading.

Panviva

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Shelf

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About

Panviva is a cloud-based software that helps businesses organize company information and make it easily accessible to employees, especially customer service teams. It acts as a central knowledge base, using AI to provide answers to questions and guide employees through complex processes. This helps reduce errors, improve customer service consistency, and speed up training times. Panviva integrates with popular platforms like Salesforce and Microsoft Teams and is designed for industries with strict compliance requirements.

Shelf is a knowledge management software that helps businesses organize their internal information and make it easily accessible. It connects to various data sources, identifies outdated or inaccurate information, and ensures employees can quickly find the answers they need. Shelf aims to improve customer service, boost productivity by reducing time spent searching for information, and enhance the accuracy of AI-powered responses. Its focus is on making internal knowledge reliable and readily available for employees, particularly in customer-facing roles.

Summary

Main difference

Panviva offers more robust AI-guided workflows and integrations for complex customer service processes, especially in regulated industries. Shelf provides a simpler, more general knowledge management solution focused on ease of use and quick access to information for customer-facing teams.

Relative strengths of Panviva (compared to Shelf)

Stronger AI-powered guidance for complex processes
Better integrations for specific industries (e.g., healthcare, finance)
Focus on compliance and reducing errors in regulated environments

Relative weaknesses of Panviva (compared to Shelf)

Less intuitive interface and more complex setup
Limited content formatting options
Weaker general knowledge search capabilities compared to Shelf

What companies are using Panviva and Shelf?

American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact

Who should use Panviva VS. Shelf

Panviva is a user-friendly knowledge management platform ideal for customer service teams in enterprises with complex processes. It acts as a central information hub, using AI to guide employees and ensure consistent customer service. Users praise its integrations and "guide on the side" functionality, while some note limitations in formatting and bulk editing.

Shelf is a knowledge management solution ideal for customer-facing teams needing quick access to accurate information. Users praise Shelf's agent assist feature, content intelligence, and decision trees. However, some users mention issues with the review process and search algorithm accuracy. Shelf integrates with CRMs and contact center solutions to streamline customer interactions and boost productivity.

Best for enterprise businesses (1000+ employees).
Ideal for Healthcare, Finance, Media, Telecom, Professional Services, and Automotive.

Best fit for small to medium-sized businesses.
Suitable for various industries.

Panviva and Shelf features

Supported

Partially supported

Not supported

Type in the name of the feature or in your own words tell us what you need

Centralized Contact Database

Not supported

Panviva does not directly support centralized contact databases for lead nurturing.

Not supported

Shelf does not offer a centralized contact database.
AI-powered knowledge guidance

Supported

Panviva offers AI-powered knowledge guidance across multiple channels and systems.

Supported

Shelf provides AI-powered knowledge guidance, surfacing answers and guidance across systems.
Reduced onboarding and training time

Supported

Panviva reduces onboarding time with guided workflows and knowledge access.

Supported

Shelf reduces onboarding time with intuitive knowledge access and process guidance.
Reduced training costs and time

Supported

Panviva simplifies training, reduces training time and costs by up to 66%.

Partially supported

Shelf simplifies training by making information easily accessible, potentially reducing training time and costs.
IVR automation

Supported

Panviva supports IVR automation through integrations and APIs, enabling task automation and context-based knowledge delivery within IVR systems.

Supported

Shelf supports IVR automation through integrations with various IVR systems and natural language bots. It automates tasks like connecting IVR outcomes to relevant content, providing real-time answer recommendations, and enabling seamless information transfer between IVR and CSRs.
Search Functionality

Supported

Panviva provides a robust and efficient search functionality through its Search API, Search Artefacts API, and Natural Language Search (NLS) APIs. These APIs allow users to search for information in various ways, including natural language queries, and retrieve accurate and consistent results. The contextual search capabilities further enhance the user experience by providing the right information at the right time.

Supported

Shelf offers a robust search functionality including semantic search, filters and AI powered answers. This functionality is well documented across multiple resources.

Qualities

Value and Pricing Transparency

No data

No data
Customer Service

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Ease of Use

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Reliability and Performance

No data

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Ease of Implementation

No data

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Scalability

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Panviva and Shelf Pricing

No data

We couldn't find a pricing page for Panviva.

No data

We couldn't find a pricing page for Shelf.

Panviva and Shelf review insights

Users love

Panviva provides a single source of truth for company information, improving customer service consistency and speed.
The platform is user-friendly for both administrators and end-users.
Panviva integrates seamlessly with other systems like Salesforce and Microsoft Teams.
The "guide on the side" functionality is praised for allowing users to follow instructions while working in other applications.
Customer support from Panviva is consistently rated as phenomenal.

Seamless integration with contact center solutions and CRMs.
Agent Assist feature praised for boosting efficiency and providing relevant information during customer interactions.
Content Intelligence aids content management by identifying outdated information, leading to improved accuracy and trustworthiness.
Decision Trees are highly praised for simplifying complex processes into easy-to-follow guides.
User-friendly interface praised for its ease of navigation and search functionality.

Users dislike

Panviva\'s formatting capabilities are limited, making it difficult to create visually appealing documents.
The need to tag keywords for effective searching is a challenge for user adoption.
Mass changes across multiple documents are difficult; for example, updating a template used across many pages requires manual changes to each page.
The global find-and-replace feature, while useful, is buggy and limited.

The review process requires manual workarounds and lacks bulk assignment features.
The search algorithm can be inaccurate, often listing relevant results lower.
Limited customization options for announcements, lacking email notifications and requiring manual checks for confirmations.
Excel document support is poor, with difficulties in uploading, updating, and integration.

Panviva and Shelf Ratings

G2

4.6/5

(95)
Glassdoor

3.4/5

(385)

G2

4.7/5

(138)
Glassdoor

4.3/5

(20)

Company health

Employee growth

19% increase in the last year

2% increase in the last year

Web traffic

17% decrease in the last quarter

2% decrease in the last quarter

Financing

June 2022 - $836M

May 2013 - $300K

How do Panviva's guided workflows compare to Shelf's AI-powered search for user adoption?

Panviva's guided workflows, described as "guide on the side," offer in-application guidance, improving user adoption by reducing the need to switch between applications for instructions. While Shelf's AI-powered search helps users quickly find information, it doesn't provide the same level of in-application, step-by-step guidance. Therefore, Panviva may be more effective for complex processes requiring detailed instructions, while Shelf's strength lies in quick information retrieval within a knowledge base.

Which product, Panviva or Shelf, better handles content updates in large documents?

Panviva is worse at handling content updates in large documents. While both products offer knowledge management features, Panviva users specifically complain about the difficulty of making mass changes across multiple documents. Updating templates requires manual changes to each page, and the global find-and-replace has limitations and bugs. Shelf's issues center around content upload and format limitations, not mass updates. Therefore, Shelf is better suited for managing updates within large documents compared to Panviva.

What are the advantages of Panviva?

Panviva offers AI-powered knowledge guidance, which helps employees, especially customer service teams, quickly find answers and navigate complex processes. This leads to reduced training costs and times, improved customer service consistency, and faster onboarding. It integrates well with popular platforms like Salesforce and Microsoft Teams and is particularly suited for industries with strict compliance requirements, such as healthcare and finance. Panviva's "guide on the side" functionality enables users to access contextual information within their workflow, further boosting efficiency. Finally, users consistently praise Panviva's excellent customer support.

What are the disadvantages of Panviva?

Panviva has limitations in its formatting capabilities, making it difficult to create visually appealing documents. Users find keyword tagging crucial for effective searching, which can present a challenge for user adoption. Making mass changes across multiple documents is cumbersome, requiring manual updates to each page even when using a template. Finally, while Panviva offers a global find-and-replace feature, users report it to be buggy and limited.

Alternatives to Panviva and Shelf

Confluence

Confluence is a collaborative workspace designed to streamline teamwork and knowledge sharing. It allows you to create, organize, and collaborate on documents, projects, and ideas in one central hub. This eliminates scattered information and keeps everyone on the same page. Confluence integrates with other tools and is highly customizable to adapt to various team needs, from product launches to marketing strategies.

IT Glue

IT Glue is a documentation platform designed specifically for IT professionals. It allows you to manage IT assets, vendors, software information, passwords, and more, all in one place. It simplifies documentation by integrating with commonly used IT tools and offering pre-built templates. Security is a priority with features like password encryption and detailed access controls. IT Glue aims to improve efficiency by centralizing information and automating tasks like filling out password forms.

Slite

Slite is a knowledge base software that helps teams organize and access company information. It offers AI-powered search to quickly find answers, along with features for creating and managing documentation. Slite aims to be a central repository for all types of company knowledge, from onboarding materials to meeting notes, and is designed to be easy to use and adopt. The software is used by various teams, including finance, support, and product teams, to maintain a single source of truth.

Chameleon

Chameleon is a platform designed to help your users get the most out of your software. With Chameleon, you can build interactive guides, in-app messages, and surveys that are tailored to each user's needs. This helps users learn your software faster and reduces the need for support. Chameleon integrates seamlessly with your existing tools and is used by leading companies to improve user satisfaction and drive growth.

BOTWISE

BOTWISE is a knowledge management software that helps companies organize and access their internal information. Using AI, it searches through a company's files and data to answer employee questions and provide the needed information quickly. BOTWISE can be accessed through its own platform, a chatbot, or integrated into existing tools like Slack. This saves employees time and reduces the need for repetitive information searches.

Notion

Notion is an all-in-one workspace platform designed to help teams organize information, manage projects, and collaborate effectively. It centralizes notes, documents, tasks, and databases, making it easy for teams to access and share information. Notion allows users to customize their workspace with templates and integrations and offers AI features for writing assistance and information retrieval. It aims to be a flexible solution that adapts to various work styles and replaces the need for multiple single-purpose tools.

Page co-authored by

Michal Kaczor

CEO at Gralio

Michal has worked at startups for many years and writes about topics relating to software selection and IT management. As a former consultant for Bain, a business advisory company, he also knows how to understand needs of any business and find solutions to its problems.

Tymon Terlikiewicz

CTO at Gralio

Tymon is a seasoned CTO who loves finding the perfect tools for any task. He recently headed up the tech department at Batmaid, a well-known Swiss company, where he managed about 60 software purchases, including CX, HR, Payroll, Marketing automation and various developer tools.

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