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Slide 1: DITA: Managing It All DOCTRAIN East 2007 Harv Greenberg October 19, 2007
Slide 2: Purpose of Today’s Presentation Discuss content management technology in the context of DITA • How do you know when you need it? • What do you look for? • How do you go about acquiring it? © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 3: The Wonderful Thing That is DITA Content model that works • Does not require complexity, but is infinitely extensible to meet your needs An open toolkit • Lots of good stuff and continually improving A supportive community • DITA users group • Conferences like these © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 4: So Am I Done Now? It depends © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 5: Life Without a CMS It works, and it can scale At some level, if you can find what you’re looking for and it’s the right version, you’re OK © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 6: Some Challenges Data integrity History and version control Link management Workflow Collaboration Branching and where-used Translation management © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 7: Data Integrity Perhaps the biggest issue with life on the file system Good backup strategy can mitigate issue, but only if IT knows where all the cubbyholes are Easier and more visible when data lives in a real database and standard backup practices apply © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 8: History and Version Control Who did what, when, why? What changes were made? Ooops! Can we restore previous? Basic CMS function, but you may be getting what you need out of source control © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 9: Typical CMS Audit Trail © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 10: Link Management An old problem that grows in importance with DITA (and S1000D) Among problems to be solved • • • • Guaranteeing uniqueness of id’s across collection Finding id’s to link to Ensuring that links resolve Fixing broken ones Perhaps solvable without CMS, provided some sort of link database exists © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 11: CMS to Link Management By definition, every object gets a unique ID Links are discovered at content creation and abstracted onto metadata All tools (e.g. publish, translation) act on metadata to produce correct result © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 12: Link Validation Scenario © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 13: Workflow CMS workflow is a way to embed business process in software and addresses issues such as • • • • • Who initiates work? When is it due? How do different roles interact with content? Who has permission to do what? How do we know when we’re done Clear CMS value add (assuming CMS has workflow) © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 14: Work Package (Project) in Authoring © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 15: Project in Review Step © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 16: Collaboration Workflow has typically addressed interactions between CMS actors Collaboration requirements have become much more dynamic • Involving participants beyond CMS • Involving reviewers who need to work with XML content who do not have XML tools and skills • Supporting parallel reviews and merging results Found solutions by partnering with industry leading authoring tool vendor JustSystems © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 17: Sending Topics to XMetaL Reviewer © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 18: Evolution of Topic in Reviewer © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 19: Branching and Where Used Traditional tech doc paradigm • Surrounds notion of approved version and a work in progress version • History never changes • Concurrent versions supported via effectivity (e.g. ECPs, ship alts) New paradigm • Much more modular writing supporting concurrent releases © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 20: Implications Multiple versions now in work concurrently; may also need to account for a future merge Requires very clear visibility into what version of what is where Copy and paste file system model fraught with peril © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 21: Branch Merge: Creating Branch © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 22: Branch Merge: Selecting Components Populate the Variant © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 23: Branch Merge: Comparing Versions © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 24: Translation Management While translation is nothing new, requirements are literally exploding • More stuff needs to be published in more languages • About half of the RFPs we are seeing contain translation requirements © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 25: What It’s All About Given source language object and requirement for target language • Does target language object exist? If not, create it and translate • If so, is it current? If not, update translation But wait, there’s more • Are there dependencies, such as conrefs and graphics? • Are you using translation memory? If so, what is its workflow? © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 26: Translation Export © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 27: Result in Translation Memory Idiom and SDL translation interfaces © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 28: Checking Status © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 29: Result in CMS © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 30: What Do You Look For? It depends Wide array of choices available • • • • • • Departmental versus Enterprise Shrinkwrap versus Framework Rent versus Buy XML versus XML + Unstructured Provides workflow or not Provides API or not © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 31: Recommendations Use opportunities like these to find out what is available and try to narrow your focus Don’t be afraid to get professional help © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 32: How Do You Acquire One? First of all, find out what your business requires • • • • Who owns the money? Who ultimately has the authority to buy? Who also needs to sign off? Is a formal business case required (see professional help earlier)? • And, oh by the way, do you already have a CMS in your organization that you can use or are required to use? © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 33: Acquire (Continued) Keep your focus on business, not technical requirements • Don’t try to design a solution in your RFP • Remember, that what you are seeing in product demos is implementation, not gospel Avoid the more is better trap • Some of our best experiences (win or lose) have been on RFPs of about a dozen pages for which selection took less than a month Consider phased implementation © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.
Slide 34: Questions and Follow-up harvey.greenberg@xyenterprise.com 781-756-5589 © 2007 XyEnterprise Inc.