Help!

You will note a 5 month gap since my last post. I apologize but there are reasons...

1. The main reason is that my wife decided that I should be spending my evenings re-decorating the house rather than enjoying my work!!
2. I completely hand made a cabin bed for my daughter's bedroom.
3. We wanted a complete overhaul of the main resource aid available to our customers, namely the help file that ships with each product.

Just as we take quality and stability of product seriously we take technical communication seriously. Sharing our knowledge can only be good for all, as it: -

• Reduces the support burden on our resellers and ourselves
• Contributes to the success of the customer

There are many, many ways we can share technical information. Steps are being taken to explore each one and hopefully I will be making you aware about these in the not too distant future. But for now I wanted to enlighten you of the work under taken by our technical team for the compiled help file that is being shipped with SP2.

We feel after the excellent training programmes offered by our VAR's the help file is the next most important method for users to understand what can be done and how to do it. I personally feel more comfortable finding out how to achieve something by learning myself rather than have someone do it for me.

This is why we committed a large amount of time, completely focussed on re-structuring and adding content to the compiled help file for the latest service release.

Producing a technical document can be an absorbing task. Producing a technical document that can also serve as a compiled help file adds another level of complexity to the cause.

In the long distant past we held data in one format for the help file, another format for a knowledge base, another format again for training courses, and also utilized .doc, .xls, .ppt formats for many other types of documents we regularly produce. We knew to maintain a healthy technical resource we needed to standardize on one format. The format had to be Microsoft Word – it is an essential tool in everything we do. But compiled help files required the data to be presented in HTML format.

Luckily we found and invested in a program that scans a Word document creates all the html files, creates a TOC, Index and keyword list and compiles it all together as the .chm file we need, all at the touch of a button.

So our attention then turned to learning how to use Word more effectively. We learned how to effectively use formatting and styles, how to index items, how to mark items for keywords, how to cross reference topics, etc.

Next we focussed on content. We wanted a good mix of data in the help file that covered the straightforward functionality (just in case it had been forgotten), right through to the more involved 'enterprise type' areas. Content was acquired from our existing knowledge base, reseller and customer feedback, existing training documentation, support requests and our own knowledge of working with SolidWorks and DriveWorks.

Prior to SP2 we had a contents structure that had a beginner section, an intermediate section and an advanced section. This proved difficult to place topics, we take pride in making DriveWorks 'easy to use' so having an advanced section seemed to contradict this. The more understandable structure, for the contents to take, was one representative of the logical To Do list available in the product. This obvious change makes finding the topic help is needed for simple.

And so with the release of SP2 we hope the all new help file will give you the information you require when you need it. I hope it's not too long before I can bring you news on additional resources that will be at your disposal.

The 'hand made' cabin bed