Customization Ribbon and Menus for Company Software

[VeronicaJ]

Does anyone have any experience with documenting company software, where the ribbon and menus can be customized?

Example:

Previously in a topic, I would've documented the navigation something like this:

From the  ribbon, select the Utility tab, then click the Ppr button. The Processor Front End screen (Figure 3) displays.

However, that button may or may not be under that tab, and I have no idea how the client would've customized their ribbon or menu.

I've placed a reminder in topics like this:

Reminder! Your menu options vary according to the security settings assigned as well as your assigned role.

Has anyone documented this type of thing differently, where it was well received by clients and effective too?

For reference, using RH 2020.4.173

Thanks so much in advance for your time!

[Peter Grainge · Accepted solution]

It's a perennial problem and there isn't a really good answer. At one time you could freely edit Microsoft Office menus and eventually after lots of corporate complaints they made it near impossible. The corporates were having problems with supporting users where as soon as they said go to Menu X and click Y, the response was the option wasn't there. Eventually more customisation is allowed by Microsoft after expert users then protested but it is still more restricted than it was.

About all you can do is preface all topics with something along the lines "your experience may differ".

Beyond that? Maybe the options could have a code and the app could have a method of finding where that coded option is. Stand well clear when you suggest that to the developers. 🙂

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[Amebr]

I once worked on software where the field names could be customised (I had nightmares about that for months...). The best I came up with was deciding on as generic terms as I could, defining them in the glossary and having an intro topic that described that the users' field names may vary.

It was too unwieldy to mention it in every place it would have been relevant. I did include links to the glossary in the key topics that I figured users would be most likely to read as new users, so theoretically they would be familiar with the generic naming convention.

[Amebr]

Another idea might be to skip the navigation path entirely, and have the step as "Open the xxx screen", and have that link to a topic that describes the default locations of each button and a prominent note that says "your ribbon may be customised" or something.

The topic might be:

<H1>About the default ribbon

<p>blurb here

<note>Your ribbon may be customised blah blah.

<h2>Dashboard tab

<screenshot of dashboard buttons>

<table listing each button>

<h2>Home tab

<screenshot>

etc.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

The usual way for getting around that is to only describe the "happy path" or "factory settings" views of the software with a prominent mention of the ability to customize.