Comments on: How do we move to single source? http://www.onemanwrites.co.uk/2008/10/27/how-do-we-move-to-single-source/ musings on technical communications Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:45:00 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Gordon McLean http://www.onemanwrites.co.uk/2008/10/27/how-do-we-move-to-single-source/comment-page-1/#comment-7421 Gordon McLean Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:37:59 +0000 http://www.onemanwrites.co.uk/?p=239#comment-7421 Hi Matt, Interesting news about 5.2, that'll be interesting as we are already starting to structure imported topics using DITA as a 'template', actually being able to use DITA for that will be a boon. The main reason we want to do things this way is purely to protect our content for the future. A 'get out' strategy (hey, who knows what will happen in the next 3-4 years.. Hi Matt,

Interesting news about 5.2, that’ll be interesting as we are already starting to structure imported topics using DITA as a ‘template’, actually being able to use DITA for that will be a boon.

The main reason we want to do things this way is purely to protect our content for the future. A ‘get out’ strategy (hey, who knows what will happen in the next 3-4 years..

]]> By: Matt Armstrong http://www.onemanwrites.co.uk/2008/10/27/how-do-we-move-to-single-source/comment-page-1/#comment-7420 Matt Armstrong Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:24:54 +0000 http://www.onemanwrites.co.uk/?p=239#comment-7420 What you've outlined is one of the biggest hurdles for all organisations that want to move from an unstructured methodology to a structured one - how long (and how much) to get there. Once the enthusiasm of a DITA or custom schema approach dies down and people realise how much effort will be involved in migrating or re-writing existing content to meet the structure, at the same time as meeting their day to day work requirements, the task has become huge and the true cost almost unknown. When you say several thousand to implement a DITA solution I think you are underestimating the cost dramatically - every hour that a team don't spend writing (meetings, problem solving, struggling with a new tool etc), every hour a developer spends updating a schema/specialisation/XSLT, every day a project slips, all add to the true cost of the project. When management add this up the cost of tools is often minor in comparison. According to our clients this has been the biggest gap - managing and evolving non-compliant Topics when the technology requires compliance to deliver an output - eg. the XSLT or DITA Toolkit chokes because your content isn't yet fully compliant. We talk to a lot of organisations migrating from Frame/RoboHelp/Flare (and even Word) and regardless of technology the big hurdle is the need to continue meeting deadlines while migrating from unstructured content to structured content. So in the 5.2 release of Author-it we've added template-based structured authoring where, once content is imported (or written), you can apply a DITA or other structure over the Topic and see exactly where you do and do not structurally comply. Once your Framemaker or RoboHelp document is imported you immediately see which Topics are compliant and which are not, *but you can still publish your document*. You can continue to meet deadlines and always have complete visibility of which Topics in which projects need to be updated to meet your structure standards. The Author-it Structures are Object templates that can be applied en masse, and if you change the template all Objects inherit the new structure rules (or show you they now fail to comply). Workflow controls mean Topics *must* comply at certain Release States (‘Draft’ can be non-compliant but ‘Released’ must be compliant), and Publishing Profiles remove all non-compliant topics during publishing if you use the DITA Toolkit or similar XSLT processor. Finally, you are correct that tool manufacturers are working to get on top of this. The successful ones will be those that solve real business problems with technology, and don’t just tick technology boxes. What you’ve outlined is one of the biggest hurdles for all organisations that want to move from an unstructured methodology to a structured one – how long (and how much) to get there. Once the enthusiasm of a DITA or custom schema approach dies down and people realise how much effort will be involved in migrating or re-writing existing content to meet the structure, at the same time as meeting their day to day work requirements, the task has become huge and the true cost almost unknown.

When you say several thousand to implement a DITA solution I think you are underestimating the cost dramatically – every hour that a team don’t spend writing (meetings, problem solving, struggling with a new tool etc), every hour a developer spends updating a schema/specialisation/XSLT, every day a project slips, all add to the true cost of the project. When management add this up the cost of tools is often minor in comparison.

According to our clients this has been the biggest gap – managing and evolving non-compliant Topics when the technology requires compliance to deliver an output – eg. the XSLT or DITA Toolkit chokes because your content isn’t yet fully compliant. We talk to a lot of organisations migrating from Frame/RoboHelp/Flare (and even Word) and regardless of technology the big hurdle is the need to continue meeting deadlines while migrating from unstructured content to structured content.

So in the 5.2 release of Author-it we’ve added template-based structured authoring where, once content is imported (or written), you can apply a DITA or other structure over the Topic and see exactly where you do and do not structurally comply. Once your Framemaker or RoboHelp document is imported you immediately see which Topics are compliant and which are not, *but you can still publish your document*. You can continue to meet deadlines and always have complete visibility of which Topics in which projects need to be updated to meet your structure standards.

The Author-it Structures are Object templates that can be applied en masse, and if you change the template all Objects inherit the new structure rules (or show you they now fail to comply). Workflow controls mean Topics *must* comply at certain Release States (‘Draft’ can be non-compliant but ‘Released’ must be compliant), and Publishing Profiles remove all non-compliant topics during publishing if you use the DITA Toolkit or similar XSLT processor.

Finally, you are correct that tool manufacturers are working to get on top of this. The successful ones will be those that solve real business problems with technology, and don’t just tick technology boxes.

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