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Subject:RE: Help for Real-Time Support From:Paul Hanson <PHanson -at- Quintrex -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Thu, 2 Mar 2006 11:14:13 -0600
Exactly. If the documentation you are tasked <grin, <cliché>couldn't
resist</cliché>> to write is for your Support staff, make allies with them.
They are a client too. Find out their needs *from them* and be responsive to
their needs. You may want to come up with some assumptions and get a small
basic help system put together and then show it to their manager or, if you
have a good relationship with a specific co-worker, ask them to look at what
you are going to be trying to do.
I have created a huge internal WinHelp file that contains all the internal
information about our products. There are links to specs, programmer
documentation, and <crucial> the online Help. This means that if there is a
reference in the online Help about the "Apples" system option, they can type
"Apples" in the internal Help file to find the information about it. Then,
they *should* be able to click a link on the internal topic to that will
take them back to the online Help, a "round-trip" process.
Each of our Support dept's PCs have a shortcut to a DOS batch file that will
copy the latest/greatest version of documentation to their PC. I use the
line "My only rule is that you have to tell me if you are reading something
and it doesn't make sense. I'd rather fix it and have it go out right than
to have an external client call and say "I don't get it."'. That approach
has worked for me - maybe it will for you too. My ultimate goal is to
convert this WinHelp project to HTML and post it on our server so that our
trainers and other off-site staff can access the latest/greatest version of
help through the Internet. I hope that's in the near future.
Paul Hanson
Technical Writer
Adobe Community Expert (ACE) - RoboHelp http://www.macromedia.com/support/forums/team_macromedia/team_members/200.ht
ml
Quintrex Data Systems http://www.quintrex.com
email: phanson at quintrex.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Melissa Nelson
Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2006 11:01 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: Help for Real-Time Support
<snip>
I found the ability to talk to the Help Support staff and get their ideas
about what they needed in documentation to be an incredible oppurtunity. I
went by what they felt they needed the most and the format etc...flowed from
that.
<snip>
>From: Edina Monsoon To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Help for Real-Time Support Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 16:32:17 +0000
(GMT)
>
>Hi all,
>
>Has anyone developed technical content that caters to technical
>support/ helpdesk folks?
<snip>
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