Want to publish many projects from the same project file with Server 9...Advice?

Report · Mar 28, 2012

I need advice. Right now, we're just publishing one project to RH Server 9. We have over 30 functional roles. We wanted to keep all of the topics in one project file, because there are many general topics to be shared.

In the future, I'm recommending that we publish the 30+ functional roles as separate projects on the server, but all from the same project file. We planned to build 30+ different layouts for each functional role, each with their own Project Name, TOC, Index, window and maybe Conditional Build Expression. (We are currently using FlashHelp Pro. We're not merging anything, but plan to use RoboSource Control. Our tests are publishing the different projects to the same Area on the Server.)

It looks like what we enter in the layout as the Project Name will differentiate the projects and the URLs on the RH Server. So, no problem, right? Will publishing 30+ different projects (from the same project file) tax the system too much? What other complexities or difficulties should I expect? We may grow from 40+ or who knows..I hear there is no limit, but are there practical considerations from having too many TOCs or layouts or projects from the same project file? I'm an Instructional Designer, not a techie. I'd love your advice on this.

Report · Mar 29, 2012

I think the difficulties you'll have will be in the usability of the RH Server with that number of outputs. There is nothing technical that I'm aware of. For example having 40+ records in a drop down when attempting to run the reports on a given output. You may want to think about using different areas or even contexts and areas for your output. Think of this as a way of placing your output in different directories, thereby making it more manageable.

For our perspective, we use RHS8 across several contexts. We have had as many as 20 areas in a single context with 15 projects in the biggest area. Hope this helps.

Colum