RE: Installation guide for Enterprise application

["Greg Thompson" <gthompson -at- conformia -dot- com>]

Shelly:

You are more than bordering on venting. You are bordering on insanity.
:)

Don't worry, I would be too and have been,

If the prereq/integration installations take more than 30 min for even
experienced IT people, then you cannot meet your requirement because you
have no control over third party software or documentation in terms of
accuracy or usability. If you prereq/integration installs have to be
done by sales engineers, then they either need more training or the 30
min requirement for them to install the app needs to be expanded.

I work here in the Bay Area also, currently contracting at an enterprise
company called Conformia. My first task was to document (and do!!!) an
install of their enterprise application, which included third party
software. Not an easy take to install with the existing documentation
which seemed to have written at such a high level of detail that the IT
person who was doing the install would be expected to provide many of
the details of the install as it related to his/her experience with
third party products.

I didn't have that experience with this set of third party products, so
I felt like your sales engineers.

When a product has been marketed as yours has, it is hard to adjust
management's expectations with reality.

Greg



-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-techwr-l-170509 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
[mailto:bounce-techwr-l-170509 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com] On Behalf Of King,
Shelly
Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2004 8:46 AM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: RE: Installation guide for Enterprise application

Thank you all for your replies! I realize that in my effort to be brief,
I left out some crucial information. The installation of our product is
actually very simple, only six steps. It's the installation of all the
prereqs and other integrated systems that takes so much time. It's the
whole thing (installation of all apps and integration) that management
thinks should be 30 minutes. What I'm being asked to do is document the
installation and setup of all the prerequisites and other apps which
which we integrate. This is six different apps outside of our product.
The installation and setup of these apps are completely separate from
our product and must be purchased separately by our customers. Because
the configuration with our app and the others is highly customized, I
say in the install guide that we support all configurations as long as
they meet xxx requirements and provide an example of a common
configuration. What management wants me to do is provide details on
installation and setup of all the other apps, including screenshots. My
viewpoint, and the rest of engineering, is that a person with a high
level of skill (our PS team or a partner) will need to do the setup, not
because of our product but because of all the integration points and
that the documentation provided with the other apps is sufficient. This
all got stirred up because the sales engineers, who don't meet the skill
set requirements stated in the docs, can't do the set up themselves
using the documentation from the other apps. OK, sorry, I'm bordering on
venting.
 
Many thanks!
 
Shelly

	


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