"The functionality in ComponentOne Doc-To-Help saved us an estimated four months of development time, compared to traditional Help tools, in creating an extensive online Help System."

Business Needs

Point North Consulting is a business process and computer consulting practice with a presence in Florida (Orlando), Colorado (Denver), and Southern California. Among their clients’ diversified needs is the requirement for complete and well-written printable user reference guides as well as compatible online Help systems.

Point North Consulting was contracted by a leading event ticketing company to create the initial documentation for an extensive Web-based online event ticketing solution. Since the software sells with optional modules, the documentation needed to be designed so that each module could be used independently or combined with others. The client set specific requirements and requested Point North Consulting provide the following functionality:

• A printable user reference manual to serve the needs of current users, the training department, and those evaluating the system for potential purchase.
• An HTML Help system to make the documentation available in the application with Table of Contents, Index of Keywords, Search, and Favorites capabilities.
• A simple way to integrate Context-Sensitive Help using the F1 (Help) key from within all of the ticketing modules.

The expectation was to provide an effective online Help system that contains all reference and manual information without doubling the amount of time, effort, and cost. In addition, they had to determine how to author the manual and complete online Help in the same general project timeframe.

Solution

Before Doc-To-Help, Point North Consulting authored the Ticketing User Reference Guide in Microsoft Word and then considered copying the content into a Help authoring tool to create its online component. However, this method requires duplicating efforts and ongoing dual maintenance. They knew there had to be a better way and with their defined requirements, they evaluated several products. The other popular Help solutions suffered from "double work" cost in both development and maintenance. After extensive research, Point North Consulting identified ComponentOne Doc-To-Help as the product that satisfied each of the requirements plus eliminated the duplication of effort required by other tools.

"Doc-To-Help provides comprehensive functionality for translating Microsoft Word documents into a Help system. Through mappings based on paragraph and character styles used in the original document, we were able to quickly configure the styles and features needed in Doc-To-Help for our initial trial pass for the client as a proof-of-concept," stated Byron Claghorn, director of business development at Point North Consulting.

It took about a half-hour to feed the 700+ page illustrated document into Doc-To-Help, which then generated a very impressive online Help system that worked on the first try. Doc-To-Help even preserved the original structure of the printed User Reference Guide, while automatically generating rich and robust linking of individual Help topics.

The impressive initial results (80% - 90% of Point North’s goal) allowed them to rapidly identify the necessary changes. They were able to progress with a few minor edits, improve their paragraph-style mappings and refine some Doc-To-Help parameters to achieve a very comprehensive and professional online Help solution in a relatively short amount of time.

Subsequently, the Web-based ticketing solution continued to change and evolve while Doc-To-Help allowed the corresponding documentation to be efficiently updated in both the User Guide and the Online Help, keeping them consistent with each iterative update.

The original document was around 40 MB in size and therefore awkward to load into Word and it was difficult to share with reviewers due to its large size. Doc-To-Help allowed Point North to break the original guide up into many smaller source Word modules that were much more convenient to work with and share with reviewers and contributing authors. Additionally, they could mix and match these modules at publishing time to create the modular content needed by each ticketing solution customer.

"The reality is that good documentation and Help is not easy to develop or maintain, but the modularity and capabilities of Doc-To-Help make the entire process much more organized and effective," said Byron Claghorn.

"Point North’s case demonstrates Doc-To-Help’s mission, to give users a solution that empowers them to use one application and one project to produce all of their desired deliverables. The fact that they were able to take an existing Word document, one that was not originally intended for use with Doc-To-Help, is a glowing testament to Doc-To-Help’s power," stated Dan Beall, product manager at ComponentOne.

Benefits

Reduced Maintenance
From a single set of Word source documents, Point North Consulting was able to establish an architecture that easily produces both Help and manuals for the client using Doc-To-Help. This architecture provides for ongoing maintenance savings. Gone are the days when you had to maintain multiple sets of documentation, with Doc-To-Help you can just update the content once and publish to all versions with a click. "Our client was amazed that the content for every version can be stored in only one project. Couple this with its ability to include only appropriate content when publishing any particular version, and you have everything you need," says Claghorn.

Diminished Learning Curve
Since Doc-To-Help integrates so tightly with the familiar Microsoft Word tool, the client was able to use the initial document as the framework. This reduced learning curve allowed the client to continue authoring with Doc-to-Help after only a couple of hours of TOI (Transfer of Information). You can work in Word and store all content in Word, without ever having to convert to a proprietary format. Doc-To-Help also installs convenient toolbars in Word’s interface to help with adding elements to the documentation such as links, pop-ups, glossary terms, and more.

Cost and Time Savings
"Doc-To-Help reduced the work cost for both development and maintenance by at least 50%," stated Claghorn. "The versatile functionality of Doc-To-Help made it possible to use existing documents to create online Help, and with the use of its conditional content feature, we were able to store all the content in one project and mix and match at publishing time. Thanks to Doc-To-Help, we saved 4+ plus months by not having to duplicate our efforts, and we continue to save time on an ongoing basis."

About Point North Consulting
Point North Consulting is an Orlando-based firm focused on helping clients improve their bottom line through proven business process optimization and information management techniques. Point North provides expertise in mergers and acquisitions, and consults for healthcare, government, retail, transportation, and other industries. Point Noth Website

About ComponentOne
ComponentOne is a premier provider of award-winning tools and components for software developers building advanced, enterprise-style Microsoft Windows Forms, Web-based and Mobile applications; Help authors who write and design Help systems; and support centers who utilize self-service and knowledge management solutions. For more information on ComponentOne or its products, visit, http://www.componentone.com.

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