TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
I'm creating help systems for several applications for several OEMs.
One application in particular is being especially nasty. This
application has three (potentially as many as 20) OEM-specific
versions. Each version has different branding and, in several cases,
some functionality changes. These changes are driven by the fact that
the application is being marketed to multiple audiences with multiple
needs. Each OEM wants Help Files specific to them that only deal with
them and no other OEM. Since these OEMs are often rivals competing for
the same market, it is absolutely vital that we comply and create
customized Help for each version.
The big problem we are having (and sorry if I'm not technical enough
here) is that our build system is designed to handle the main
application and the OEM-specific versions as a single application.
That includes the help. We cannot include multiple versions of the
help without creating multiple builds. That would require each build
to be built and tested independently of the other. Therefore, an
increase of one OEM build increases our building and testing workload
by one. With the potential of 20 OEM-specific versions, we could end
up with 21 different builds and testing cyclese (20 OEMS plus the
original application). That is not an acceptable workload for our
already over-taxed Build and QA Team.
The question: Since a generic universal help is not an acceptable
alternative and multiple builds is not an acceptable alternative, does
anyone have any idea of how to handle this? We want/need customized
OEM-specific Help for each application.
One thought we had was to create an external website that users would
go to and then select their application from a list of available apps,
but only about 25% of our users connect their work machines to the
internet.
Frankly, it seems that the answer is staring me in the face, but I can't see it.
For the record, I'm using MadCap Flare v. 1.2.
Thanks all,
Dave
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
WebWorks ePublisher Pro for Word features support for every major Help
format plus PDF, HTML and more. Flexible, precise, and efficient content
delivery. Try it today! http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l
Easily create HTML or Microsoft Word content and convert to any popular Help file format or printed documentation. Learn more at http://www.DocToHelp.com/TechwrlList
