Revising Evergreen Documents

[Beth Agnew <bagnew -at- INSYSTEMS -dot- COM>]

Phyllis Palmer asked:
"How does one keep control over the revisions on this "ever
green/living" document?"

We use a version control system where the document is held
electronically, and only printed out when someone needs a copy. Our
document management system actually lets any user with the right
permissions access any version, read-only. There's also a note on the
inside front cover that includes the creation date, the last revised
date, and a field for date printed. Only one person handles revisions.

The danger, as Phyllis implies, is that you might get a steady trickle
of requests to revise this document, keeping one busy on a daily basis.
Nobody wants to keep tinkering with a document. Any documents that could
be considered "evergreen" generally don't need such frequent revision.
If that were the case, we'd probably set up a revision schedule, such as
monthly, quarterly. Anyone accessing the most recent copy would also
know it had been changed as of X date, and was valid up to that point.
In our situation, it's unlikely that anything truly important would have
been missed. If someone absolutely has to have the most current version,
then I get a phone call, and I let them know as soon as all the
revisions (minor) have been made.

--Beth

Beth Agnew
Senior Technical Writer, InSystems Technologies Inc.
65 Allstate Parkway, Suite 100  Tel: (905) 513-1400 ext. 280
Markham, Ontario, Canada L3R 9X1        Fax: (905) 513-1419
mailto:bagnew -at- insystems -dot- com    Visit us at: http://www.insystems.com

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