Folks, I really need the wisdom of those who have been through this process! I just went through the online seminars covering integration and they were very, very helpful. But now I'm not sure if my original approach to my single-source FM user guides will work once I throw a Help system into the mix. Please bear with me as this is complicated to explain.
Basically, my company has a large Web-delivered application that is split into 4 modules. Customers may have 1 or more modules. The application functions differently in some areas, depending on what modules the customer has installed.
I'm writing new end-user guides from scratch in FM (old material is several versions old and so poorly written and out of date as to be unusable as source for new material). The first guide is about 95% complete at 270 pgs. The second is 60% complete and estimated to be about 300 pgs. The other 2 have not been started as they were assigned to another writer who didn't start them before she left the company. Four common chapters appear in all books, two of which will have some module-specific content. My original strategy was to set up single sourcing once the second book was done and I had a better idea of the common material. I had planned to have separate book files for each output that would pull in the shared chapters, plus the book's unique chapters.
My company is in the process of redesigning the application's UI in a significant fashion that will require rewriting many procedures. For the new UI, they want a context-sensitive Help system (at the screen level). While I could easily take one FM book and convert it to a Help system for just that module, I really need to set up linking between the module Help systems to cover how the application processing changes depending on what modules are installed. In the books, we can only manually point them to the relevant book and chap (for example, "if you're also using X module, see "Doing such and such" in the X Module user guide"). I want to have links from one module's Help to another to handle that situation, so I'm thinking that making one Help system that covers all modules would be the best approach to handle these links. In a nutshell, I need to produce books by module but Help for all modules.
But I'm thinking that the multiple book file approach just won't work if I want to set up FM/RH integration. I would end up with multiple copies of the shared info, right? Perhaps I need to set up one FM book file (with chapters conditioned appropriately to build the book output for individual modules). Then I could set up integration so that everything comes into the Help from that book.
In addition, in the shared chapters, there is content that I don't want to appear online (such as logging in and out). So I also need to do some minor conditioning for print and online on top of the conditioning for modules. Fortunately, the print-only content will be the same for all modules.
To add a bit of spice to this mix, the content that Mgmt wants in Help first is, of course, the content for a 300 page book I haven't written yet. The module's UI is still being redesigned, so I won't be able to start producing content for several weeks. And they want the whole thing done and delivered by end of Q1 2010.
I welcome any and all suggestions on how to proceed or pointers to resources covering some of these issues. I'm now the only writer here and unfortunately have no writer friends who use TCS2 and integration. I've read through most Forum postings (been a bit frustrated by links to resources that no longer work). I hope I've provided enough info, but I'm glad to go into more detail if needed.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart to all who respond!
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