Main Steps of Authoring

How *instinctools Assists

Primary research about informational needs of a company can become really tortuous if all the current information is stored in different files and systems across multiple departments. Even if the investigation is done properly the challenges of its storing, editing and distribution become quite difficult.

Quite often the stage of information modelling is omitted in many organizations and all the main problems related to managing corporate information arise because of not devoting enough attention to prior planning.

At *instinctools we believe in significance of a prior analysis: it is critically important to understand the whole life-cycle of the information and to build a proper model. On this stage we identify the structure of information, its potential areas of reuse and improvement, the content life cycle processes (design, authoring, production, distribution) and areas for change or improvement.

We analyze existing technology base, develop criteria for the selection of specific tools and technology and decide upon the type of the new technology that should be integrated. After the analysis is done we compile all the existing content into one data base according to the models we have developed. After that the information is stored in one single place and all the users receive certain rights for its access.

Once the content has been created, it has to be edited and updated according to new business requirements. The search for existing information can be quite cumbersome if the content is stored in different places without clear structure. On the other hand, it becomes difficult to place newly created content into the right place so that it becomes available to all interested parties.

All such problems cause confusion and consume much time and energy, diverting the authors from their direct activities.

As the information is stored in one central place it is easy to find already existing relative information and understand the need for additional content. Authors do not have to reinvent the content and can concentrate on producing only really necessary information.

Adding new blocks into already existing content puts additional challenges on authors if they are not familiar with technical details of content storing. If changes are made often to the content which is used in different sources, it is necessary to search for all the use cases and make the same changes over and over again. It brings discrepancies into the content and complicates its further usage.

If there are several authors working on the same content, the coordination of their activities becomes a very important issue and requires special attention and advanced planning.

Due to clear structure and consistency of the content, editors can get an overall understanding of the existing information structure and easily detect necessary parts. Due to the use of metadata, it is easy to find all related information and make necessary changes without breaking consistency of the content. Full edit history provides with possibilities to return to previous versions and gives more control over the changes.

The system ensures that one particular content part is available only to one author at a given time and cannot be processed by another editor. Possibility to keep several versions of the same content ensures that end-users always have access to the critical information and are not disturbed during editing activities.

In order to meet requirements of global customers and ensure the availability of important data to end-users, companies have to adopt their information to local requirements. Quite often, content is translated by people who are separated by time and distance and their activities have to be coordinated properly. As it is not possible to avoid errors in such cases, extra quality assurance is required, which causes redundancy in translators’ activities and delays in information delivery.

As all the information is stored in one repository and users have clearly defined access rights, it is easier to coordinate activities of separated translators and distribute work assignments. Due to well-defined processes and efficient coordination of translating activities, translators’ workflows become much more transparent and control/tracking activities do not require as much time as before.

After the content is created, it has to be published in various formats and destinations in order to be available to all existing and potential users. As different output media has different requirements and different parts of the content have to be presented in each particular source, there is a necessity to recompile the content and adapt it to the various media requirements. It cannot be done without special technical knowledge of different platforms and limits the efficiency of publishing. There is also a need to control the adherence of content presentation to the corporate standards in all the media outputs which also requires additional time and efforts.

All the content is saved as marked logical parts and separated from its presentation, so it can easily be reused and compiled in different ways. As there is no need for sophisticated technical knowledge for publishing activities, it can be done by different users who are more knowledgeable about the content itself and are directly responsible for its quality. Embedded rules of corporate presentation requirements ensure the similar outlook in different media types and verifications becomes redundant.