atw: Re: Authorit software implementation experiences

Hi Warren,

I would not attempt to implement Authorit (or any other tool for that 
matter) under a crazy deadline and with the expectation that the content 
also needs to be translated, not just yesterday, but about six months ago. 
I spoke about this at AODC last year. 

Importing existing content can be time consuming, and it's worth trialling 
a few times in a dummy library. Figure out what stuff might be really easy 
to pull out of your old source in that format and what might be easier to 
do as global find and replaces in Authorit. We pulled out heaps of 
unnecessary stuff from our HTML with scripts one of our tech guys put 
together for us, and it saved us removing lots of "up" buttons that can be 
eliminated by Authorit templates. An initial area of pain was re-doing 
hyperlinks (one of the big imports we did was of a FrontPage web of 5000+ 
HTML files with 130,000 internal hyperlinks) to anchors/bookmarks (those 
5000+ HTML files are now something like 40,000++ topics in Authorit). But, 
now that they're done, we have less than 20,000 hyperlink objects, rather 
than 130,000 unique hyperlinks. 

Consider your info architecture and Authorit templates carefully. We had 
to pretty much chuck this content into AIT under the pressure of 
translation, and four years later are still fixing some template issues 
that could have been avoided with planning (and I asked for us to be able 
to plan ... should have just done it without permission!). 

Are all of your users in the same location? If not, how will they access 
Authorit remotely? This could be an issue. We only intended Authorit to be 
used in Brisbane, but now colleagues in Denver use it. That isn't a 
problem in itself, but can bring up questions you don't consider if 
everyone is in the same office. 

Make sure you have time to single source the content that is reusable as 
you put it into Authorit. Some of our content we reuse at the sentence 
level, others at the paragraph or topic level. What works for you will be 
different to what works for us. We didn't always manage to do that 
initially, and of course, there's rarely enough slack in project schedules 
to go back and fix up those issues. 

Consider getting Authorit's help, or help from an Authorit consultant, 
during your implementation. 

Some random thoughts and memories from my experiences, and what I wish we 
had done better or differently (or had different functionality/Authorit 
products that are available now to help us!!) four years ago. 
KT

Kirsty Taylor 
Project Manager - Content 
 kirsty.taylor@xxxxxxxxxx
Mincom. The People. The Experience. The Vision. 
This transmission is for the intended addressee only and is confidential 
information. If you have received this transmission in error, please 
notify the sender and delete the transmission. The contents of this e-mail 
are the opinion of the writer only and are not endorsed by Mincom Limited 
unless expressly stated otherwise. 



From:
"Lewington, Warren J (WT)" <warren.lewington.ext@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To:
<austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date:
08/12/2008 01:12 PM
Subject:
atw: Authorit software implementation experiences
Sent by:
austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx



Hi everyone; 
There is a possibility that one of my current clients will jump into 
Authorit as a documentation solution for the range of manuals and user 
documentation that I and a couple of colleagues produce. 
The range of products include a lot of generic information and equipment, 
along with some very specific differences, relating to size, process 
applications, required output capacity and installation options. 
Ultimately the range of products is now large enough that single sourcing 
makes more sense. 
So, the general manager, conscious of the need to manage and fund this 
style of investment, is concerned primarily with the implementation costs 
and difficulties related to rolling out an application like Authorit into 
a medium to large engineering company for producing a variety of printed, 
online and soft copy user and technical documentation. Three to five seat 
costings were requested, although my feeling is that we only need two to 
three. Moreover, my Word templates (current documentation production 
paradigm) are already prepared to deal with the importation into Authorit 
or equivalent. The people involved with documentation here are already 
very competent technically. 
We have been presented to by a very good Authorit person, and the meeting 
attendees here were impressed. We are now assessing implementation costs 
and options. 
What I am asking for on Austechwriter is whether those on Austechies who 
have been involved with an Authorit implementation or two, could present 
me with some experiences, positive and negative, lessons learned and 
perhaps some advice on how, when and benefits to them and the businesses 
concerned. We are also interested in any general ROI or cost management 
experience during and after the implementation you may be able to provide. 

Thanks and regards, 
Warren Lewington 
Technical Writer 
Memcor Products Asia 
Siemens Water Technologies 
Memcor Australia Pty Ltd 
15 Blackman Crescent 
South Windsor 
NSW 2756 
Australia 
warren.lewington.ext@xxxxxxxxxxx     
Phone:  +61 (0) 2 4577-0881
Fax:    +61 (0) 2 4577-6804
http://www.siemens.com/memcor 
Interested in Water Reuse? Learn more at www.siemens.com/memcor_evo6 
Confidentiality Note: This e-mail message and any attachments to it are 
intended only for the named recipients and may contain confidential 
information. If you are not one of the intended recipients, please do not 
duplicate or forward this e-mail message and immediately delete it from 
your computer.




-- 
This transmission is for the intended addressee only and is confidential 
information. If you have received this transmission in error, please notify the 
sender and delete the transmission. The contents of this e-mail are the opinion 
of the writer only and are not endorsed by the Mincom Group of companies unless 
expressly stated otherwise.
--

Other related posts: