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.
Subject:Re: Centralizing Online Documentation From:"Nagai, Paul" <pnagai -at- VISA -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 29 Jan 1999 08:54:35 -0800
> From: Leona L. Magee-Dupree[SMTP:leona -dot- magee-dupree -at- CCBCC -dot- COM]
> What is the best way to centralized online documentation for an entire
> company other than buying your own server or CD tower? What's the best
> tool? Any suggestions?
>
Tough to answer without more information.
What kind of online documentation (Win-Help, HTML, PDF, other more
proprietary-less open formats like IBM BookManager, etc.)?
Is your company all at one site? Or are there remote sites with access speed
limitations?
Documentation you develop? Or vendor documentation? Courseware? Tutorials?
With no server or CD tower, it gets pretty hard. Could you have users e-mail
requests and hire someone (or assign someone) to reply? That makes a small,
$2,000 server look pretty cheap to me, though. Could you distribute from a
mainframe (which is just a giant server you may already own).
Here's a question I have on this topic: How to you organize, track by
product, advertise, catalog, expire, etc. a large, centralized library of
vendor documentation in multiple formats? (Both electronic and paper ... but
mostly interested in the online portion.) Is anyone doing this? How are you
tracking installed software (and versions) in test, pilot, production, and
legacy environments?
