eDMS Roshambo Part 4 | Feedback

Updating Any Content Effectively Requires Feedback Data

Wiki strength is that anyone can provide feedback or edit content. The passive feedback of viewed pages falls under another product’s reporting (AWStats or WebTrends to name a couple).

Let’s examine the potential benefits that usage statistics and feedback could make to eDMS and/or wiki content. The two we’ll look at are Adobe RoboServer and MadCap’s Feedback Server.

Both provide feedback about page usage and search terms. This allows content creators and technical writers to evaluate which areas to focus their attention on, sort of like a triage, but MadCap’s goes a step or two farther and adds a Web 2.0 aspect with the addition of Comments pages within the web interface.

Understanding the origins of the RoboServer and Feedback Server comes in handy when comparing their technologies.

History Lesson: From DynaHelp to RoboEngine to RoboServer & Feedback Server

Eight years ago the current RoboServer was known as Dynahelp. The RoboHelp Enterprise component RoboEngine was derived from DynaHelp, a Blue Sky Software (BSS) / eHelp product that launched in 2000. Dynahelp was used by companies such as American Airlines and was an enterprise solution.

From destinationCRM’s July 2000 article DynaHelp’s Smart Web-Site Improvement Tool:

DynaHelp, [is] a server-based help tool that not only steers users through a site, gently assisting them when they become stuck or confused, but also gathers data on particularly troublesome interface and usability problems and reports the problems back to webmasters.

DynaHelp’s database makes a record of every user request for assistance and sends reports on these problematic areas back to the webmaster, explains Steven Jacobs, a Web-site designer and consultant on usable design. ”

A DynaHelp site gets more usable the more the site is used,” said Jacobs. “But you don’t have to frustrate your customers to find out how not to frustrate them.

DynaHelp was, as I understood the BSS corporate history, one of the main reasons that BSS changed its name to eHelp right around the time of the dotcom/dot-bomb in 2000. In late 2001 eHelp restructured and returned leadership back to Jorgen Lien, the founder after the core DynaHelp project failed during the dotbomb era. I could be wrong about the dates, it was before my time.

Jorgen brought eHelp back to the basics it made money on, and the core DynaHelp technology was adapted into RoboEngine, part of which was sold as the RoboInfo Server, a Policy and Procedure eDMS powerhouse at a market disrupting price point.

RoboInfo Server allowed users to index all their existing documentation, use the RoboHelp GUI and develop intranets with searchable linked content. All this for only a couple thousand dollars made it attractive.

History lesson: Competitive workflow five to seven years ago

RoboServer’s full purpose seven years ago (2001) when they introduced it was to make that existing content searchable. It was a $20,000 search engine that did natural language search (NLS) all packaged and sold for $2000.

That was disruptive on its own two legs, but add to it the online help and reporting, and it got better and better. But now it’s old.

According to Vivek Jain, Group Product Manager, RoboServer’s innovation apparently is in fixing its bugs (See Vivek’s Quality IS Innovation post on Adobe’s TechComm blog) however even that’s not compelling with the botched and blurry Captivate import into RoboHelp. Not to mention the quality of the product’s online help.

RoboHelp X4(?) and X5 (2003) made PDF import along with .doc file import possible so you could repurpose existing archived content. You could get a license for those for about $1000.

You can still get a license for X5 for around $350. OR you can buy the Adobe TechCommSuite for something under $800.

Those solutions will keep you at the same workflow competitive to Wiki. Versus desktop applications and a black hole of an intranet, you’re much better off. But it’s old. It’s not hip, with it, and let’s face it, the ‘innovation’ of RoboServer has been in trying to keep it running through the new Microsoft incarnations of NT server technology and their updates.

Or… Like in Star Wars, now experience the TRUE Power of the Dark Side

Here we are in 2008. It’s a far cry from 2000 and the launch of DynaHelp.

I’m betting on this year’s killer app for workflow being MadCap’s Flare 3.0 equipped with Analyzer and the Feedback Server, which I reviewed a few months ago. So we’ll look at the Magic Box being either Flare or Blaze.

Now, the real power of a true Collaborative Workflow with various forms of content would be:

First, that the Subject Matter Experts could use the tool of their choice, (FrameMaker, Word, etc.) and update the content at any time regardless of where it sits,

…and your magic box would then, on a cron set (for apache users), or IIS script set command line interface (CLI) schedule update your content automatically,

…leaving the Technical Communicator free to do her/his real job; concentrate on structure and form rather than the nuts and bolts behind the structure and form.

It gets better, not only can you search, but with Feedback you’re able to get the results you want passively; you can see what search terms people are using.

The Wiki without wiki anarchy: Feedback’s Comments.

Each topic has the ability to maintain those Comments and the Technical Communicator can see comments as they happen. Which means they can do updates… real time.

Output and feedback options are available both inside and outside the firewall.

See my podcast with Mike Hamilton, MadCap VP for specific details about his recommended workflows and Mike states that he doesn’t rule out a wiki model in the future. He also gives good 411 about what you can do today with his products while minimizing the anarchy that a wiki could become.

And with the Analyzer, bringing all that disparate content under control (content wrangling, as one blogger calls it) is made super simple and cost efficient because you can match up your similar phrases and frequently used terms and homogenize the entire project.