RE: Installation guide for Enterprise application

[Gordon Mclean <Gordon -dot- McLean -at- mclarensoftware -dot- com>]

Hi Shelly,

We have an installation guide for our Enterprise project, and have worked
with our own consultants to best structure it. It is presumed that the user
is of 'system administrator' level with experience working with their CMS of
choice.

We structured the guide around the physical installation requirements
(production server, web server and client installs are all required).

It does require some manual steps, but we've made as much of it Wizard based
as possible. We are similar in that it is presumed that professional
services will be used, but in an ideal world, with a generic out-of-the-box
system (ha ha) they should be able to use the installation guide. One of the
arguments I put forward to HAVE an install guide was that it helped set the
expectation for the user on the degree of difficulty they were likely to
experience. It also serves as the guide that the consultants use as the
basis for all the installations, with the caveat that it is up to them to
work around system specific issues (different port numbers for connections,
etc etc).

I would suggest that getting customer feedback and expectations for this are
crucial, can you contact any of the professional services who have been
involved in the past? I'd possibly place them as your target users of an
installation guide, and try and engage them in some discussions about what
they want/need.

HTH

Gordon McLean
Senior Technical Author
McLaren Software Ltd.
 

> -----Original Message-----

> I work for a company developing an complex enterprise 
> application that integrates with several other systems 
> including databases and CRM systems. Most people in the 
> company expect to be able to install and have the software 
> running in 30 minutes or less and because that's not 
> possible, are asking for an overhaul of the installation 
> guide. My viewpoint, from having worked at other enterprise 
> application companies, is that installation for these systems 
> are a tricky business and usually are implemented by 
> professional services, offering a generous revenue stream for 
> the company. Others in the company, including product 
> management, disagree saying that customers should be able to 
> read the documentation and install and integrate this on 
> their own with no IT experience. I'm the only writer in the 
> company and am looking for some industry comparisons that I 
> can take back to product management to help set their 
> priorities. They are basing all of their assumptions off of 
> internal users and won't consider going to customers for a 
> needs analysis.
> 
> Does anyone else out there work on enterprise applications? 
> Do you offer an installation guide? What assumptions do you 
> make regarding the user experience? Any information is 
> greatly appreciated.
> 

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