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Hi,
Our application is shared with different customers and its features are restricted based on license. Currently, we are creating a WebHelp output which contains all the files related to the application. But with this approach, a customer who is given restricted access of the application, can see the content of all feature and we do not want this to happen.
We want to restrict the display of a WebHelp content based on the license provided to the customer.
Can you please tell me how to do this?
I am using RoboHelp 15.
Regards,
Prashant
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This will be largely dependent upon how you deploy your help. Does each customer install your help on their own machines? If so, that will be much simpler to achieve than if all customers access the same set of help files from perhaps your company's web site.
How does the help get deployed?
Cheers... Rick
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Hi Rick,
Thanks for your quick reply.
Ours is a web application and is distributed as OVF (Open Virtualization Format) or RPM. It is deployed as virtual appliance in customer environment. WebHelp (All content) is bundled in these packages.
We deliver OVF 'X' to different customers at the same time. The features in OVF 'X' are restricted by license and same is expected for help content. Same is the case with RPM.
It will be great if we can reach to solution by 19th as this is a bit urgent requirement.
Thanks in advance for all your help.
Regards,
Prashant
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Hello again
I'm hopeful that others will chime in with their own suggestions.
To start with, I'm kind of a geeky sort of guy and I understand many computer related things on a level the average person might not. But you have totally lost me with the talk of OVF and RPM and virtual appliances.
Sooo, until others chime in with their own suggestions I'll just toss out a situation I experienced personally and see how it may be received.
Years ago I was a Technical Writer at a small company that sold software in different combinations of modules. These were locally installed for each customer. And I was considering restricting access to the help based on modules installed. And upon chatting with my boss (one of the owners of the small company) he wrinkled up his nose and said he didn't like that approach.
His suggestion?
I want every customer to have the full help system available.
When I asked about a hypothetical situation where the customer has the help for modules that aren't installed, I was shocked and slightly pleased by his sly reply.
He said: You know, if a customer sees the help talking about what a module they don't have is capable of, they just might be enticed to contact us and purchase additional modules.
In other words, the customer can't perform the functions anyway because they don't have the proper part of the application, but the help could be used as a sales tool.
Cheers... Rick
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Firing up Google reveals that OVF packages install on virtual machines - so that sounds like VM's on workstations & LAN servers (maybe) - so it still sounds like creating different flavs of WebHelp to go into different builds would suit the OP.
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Rick, we have followed the same approach so far as your 'boss' stated.
Now, the scenario has changed.
Thanks for your detailed explanation.
Regards,
Prashant
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Prashant
Please refer to RoboHelp 2015 to help other forum users when they search for solutions further down the line. If they search on RoboHelp 2015 any posts with RoboHelp 15 will not get returned.
Thank you.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
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Prashant