RE: Documentation Bulletins/Change Notices

["Pete Sanborn" <psanborn2 -at- earthlink -dot- net>]

Mary K. asks:
"Do you issue change bulletins, or do you hold all or some changes for the
next major release?"

First, it depends on the nature of the change.  If personal safety
(potential for injury) or equipment damage are at stake, you notify all
registered equipment (or document, if you register your documentation)
holders of the changes via a change bulletin.  If the chnage is a
non-critical issue involving a procedure or operation, it can probably wait
until the next release, assuming you have regular document releases.

Change Bulletins should be issued as needed and, in my experience, do not
have a regular release cycle.  The form of the change bulletin depends on
what you want the user to do with the change.  Some company's want the user
to literally cut and paste their paper chnages over the applicable sections
of the documentation so the applicable sections of the book will always read
correctly.  Others just want to issue a one or two page change that can be
inserted in a binder somewhere.  If the doc is stricly electronic, a PDF
that is attached to the online doc is typical.  I worked at one company that
issued replacement pages with the corrections inserted so the user just had
to remove old pages with incorrect info and replace them with new pages.

Most companies are loathe to admit that there are deficiencies in their
products or services, so if you can avoid issuing a change bulletin, you
should.  In all likelihood, your management will bury product fixes in the
next release unless the safety issues are involved.

Regards,
Pete Sanborn

-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-techwr-l-81537 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
[mailto:bounce-techwr-l-81537 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com]On Behalf Of
mary -dot- kendig -at- convergys -dot- com
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2001 11:00 AM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Documentation Bulletins/Change Notices


Our doc group members need your input! We want to know how your doc group
notifies clients about critical product changes between major releases of a
doc set. What is your process? Do you issue change bulletins, or do you
hold all or some changes for the next major release? If you issue change
bulletins, how do you construct them/set them up, and in what format? How
do you distribute them to your clients? Do you PDF them and make them
available on a Web site for clients to download? Or do you deliver just a
paper copy? How often do you issue change bulletins between major releases?
We'd appreciate any relevant information that you can provide. (And we'd
greatly appreciate any samples you can share!)

Mary Kendig
Technical Editor
Convergys Corporation, Lake Mary, FL
mary -dot- kendig -at- convergys -dot- com
407-771-7871



^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Be a published author!  iUniverse gives you: a high-quality paperback, a
custom cover design, and distribution to 25,00 retailers.  Join our almost
10,000 published authors today. http://www.iuniverse.com/publish/default.asp

  Your monthly sponsorship message here reaches more than
  5000 technical writers, providing 2,500,000+ monthly impressions.
  Contact Eric (ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com) for details and availability.

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit 
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.