IQuality supplies tailored software, internet and media solutions which are aimed at sharing information as effectively as possible. Standards, and DITA in particular, play an important role here. The exchange of information between people and organisations occurs much more effectively if there are no barriers to the interpretation of data. In our opinion DITA is not a goal but a means via which we can achieve this. Based on these principles, this article illustrates a business case with technical details.
DITA and Sitecore CMS as a single source for technical documentation
Writing technical documentation, distributing it via different channels and translating it is no simple task. This is especially true where the number of products, versions and different authors is constantly increasing. On top of that more and more different parties in different environments not only require access to the documentation, they also seek access to specific information in documentation. If you add the further requirements of working efficiently and achieving savings in costs and you will understand how complex this challenge is.
Based on this challenge we provided the implementation of the content management system (
Sitecore) for
Neopost with the help of DITA. The content management system is the single source for the technical documentation (topics, maps etc.). The information in the content management system is published via DITAPDF or to one or multiple websites. DITA can also be imported, and a link to a translation service has also been created.
Architecture: DITA through a Content Management System
We deliberately chose not to use an XML DITA editor, but a generic content management system instead. This means we looked at the process much more from the information perspective rather than from the ´manual´ perspective. The information’s structure is defined within the content management. This means the entire data gathering is standardised within the CMS system irrespective of how it is presented. The DITA structures served as starting point/best practice. For the implementation, the choice was made not to implement the entire DITA structure but only aspects that are relevant to Neopost. The fields, relations, validations, rights etc. are established per object. The adjoining image shows the structure of a DITA topic.
Linking topics, knowledge bases and more
A huge benefit of this method of working is that topics for example can also be linked to other aspects like products, Knowledge base entries, resolutions of service calls etc. These links can be used in a website environment for example a KB article might link to a manual topic.
Additionally, the integrity of the content is ensured (such as links between items), and the workflow and authorisations ensure a structured and permission-based method of working.
Read more about this article in Sharing information with DITA, part 2. Here we will discuss multiple versions of a content item, comparing versions and translation.