Re: How far do you go?

["Bill Swallow" <techcommdood -at- gmail -dot- com>]

> I'm documenting a complex product that requires several--perhaps as many
> as half--of the preconfiguration steps to be performed using one of
> several supported third-party products. Normally, I'd skip documenting
> anything that's outside the actual product and cross-reference the
> third-party docs, but in this case a great deal of information needs to
> be given to the users in order for them to determine the correct
> configuration to define.

Give them the info they need in order to make the judgement calls. If
they need to know how to proceed in a 3rd party tool, refer them to
the 3rd party docs. Unless you want to be supporting each and every
update of each and every 3rd party tool, I suggest avoiding the
"how-to" info in your documentation for those tools and deliver the
"need to know" info for your users to make the correct decisions.

--
Bill Swallow
HATT List Owner
WWP-Users List Owner
Senior Member STC, TechValley Chapter
http://techcommdood.blogspot.com
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