RE: Creating one help system for user groups with different acces s rights

["Giordano, Connie" <Connie -dot- Giordano -at- FMR -dot- COM>]

Rasil,

You can do this one with large system, but you need to take some time to
plan how best to organize it.

Robohelp allows you to tag topics and create different outputs based on how
you put those tags together.  So your planning should focus on how to
categorize, e.g.. By function, by client, or some other way.  Once you set
up the tags, then you assign all the appropriate tags to the topics.  A
caveat though, I discovered and reported a bug in the 2002 Robohelp product:
you are more limited in the number of tags that you can set up than it might
first appear.  The build dialog only recognizes some of your tags, so try to
arrange it so that you don't create more than 15-20.  In the project I set
up, I tagged for base system, custom enhancements, and add-on functionality
(e.g. products a customer can buy and integrate into the base system, but
aren't part of the base software).  You could set up your tags according to
how the access rights are defined.

Since the TOC is set up separately, you can just define the TOC items,
assign the topics, and then based on how you generate the build, your TOC
items will appear accordingly.

I've successfully organized a pretty large product this way, and have
generated five versions of the on-line help using it.  If you want more
information on how I did it, feel free to contact me off-line.

Good luck, and I hope this helps

Connie P. Giordano
Senior Technical Writer
Advisor Technology Services
A Fidelity Investments Company
704-330-2069 (w)
704-330-2350 (f)
704-957-8450 (c)
 
 "You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do."  - Henry Ford 


-----Original Message-----
From: rahuja -at- carekey -dot- com [mailto:rahuja -at- carekey -dot- com] 
Sent: Wednesday, January 08, 2003 6:39 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Creating one help system for user groups with different access
rights



Hi, All.

I am creating help using RoboHelp for a web application that, based on your
login, displays different menu options. For example, Company A bought our
product with X features. Company B, on the other hand, bought the product
with Features X and Y. I would prefer to not create a generic help system
that covers ALL features because it might be confusing to those users who
will not have access to nor see those features.

But outside of creating separate help systems for each type of login group,
I don't see how I can address this issue. I called RoboHelp to find out
whether it is possible to create multiple TOCs for the same help application
--  I'm still waiting for the call back. Has anyone else encountered this?
If so, how did you tackle this problem? The product is customized to some
degree for each new client. Creating multiple help projects for each login
group will create a huge update issue as the number of clients increase
because most of the help pages will still apply to all users.

Thanks in advance for the advice!
~Rasil

Rasil Ahuja
CareKey, Inc.
rahuja -at- carekey -dot- com
617.375.6700 ext. 25



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