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Assuming you have context-sensitive help, a help topic explaining the report is what you should get with F1 or a help button. And matching the menu with the help TOC is also good for assuring users they are in the right place.
Procedures that use the report can be documented in a separate topic. If a procedure uses only a single report, then you could include the procedure as part of the report description topic, or you can put the procedure in a separate topic with a link to it from the description topic. For procedures that use more than one report, use linked topics.
The links can be listed in the report description topic under a general subheading such as Related Topics, but I prefer being more specific: Related Procedures, or something like Procedures that Use this Report. The procedures themselves can be listed in a completely different section of the TOC, or there might be groups of procedures listed under related sections of the UI.
My 2p. tims
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+timothy -dot- slager=dematic -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com <techwr-l-bounces+timothy -dot- slager=dematic -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> On Behalf Of Joe Weinmunson
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Subject: Question on documenting reports
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The software I document currently has a Reports section in the Help file.
It goes through each report in the same order they appear in the menu, explaining both why you would run such a report and the options available.
However, I am wondering if I should expand or replace this with more task-based topics. A few reports are particularly versatile and get run all the time for very different reasons. Example: instead of a single topic about the Posting Report should I add topics like:
* getting a list of all payments made in a quarter;
* getting a list of all charges made by a given user;
* getting a list of all charges made for residential service.
