Need Condition management advice

[bbuchko]

Hey folks, I have a project that uses several conditions. However, the conditions are basically divided into two major subdivisions: customer and role. For example, let's say I have Company A, Company B, and Company C, who each have lots of shared info and some info specific to their companies. Meanwhile, within each company, I also have Role X, Role Y, and Role Z. Once again, they share some info and have other info specific to each.

The problem I'm running into is that, while my conditions seem to work very well for only two items, once I get the third into the mix, everything is screwy.

I built my targets, obviously, to cover each possible combination. I originally included the condition I wanted. So, for Target CX, I'd include C and include X and exclude everything else. The problem there was that info that was meant for CY and CZ was included and info meant for AX and BX was included as well. So, I left all of the includes blank and only checked the excludes. That worked well when I had a toggle (only A/B and X/Y).

Unfortunately, now I have to add a third role. Some info meant for Role X is not applicable to Role Y but is perfectly fine for Role Z. So, if I mark it with the X condition, it correctly excludes the info from Y, but then also excludes it from Z, making my Z help incomplete.

Thoughts? I'd hate to have to do "exclude from X, Y, X" because then I'd have to apply multiple conditions to a whole bunch of stuff, and it would only get worse with time.

[RamonS]

There is definitely a managerial limit to the conditions, especially when you have two levels as you do and chances are that it will get even "worse".
You might find the new feature in Flare 4 of interest where you can share content across projects. In your case I'd pull all those contents out that are common to all companies and roles and then split the project into three (or more) for each company using the shared cross-project content. Within the individual projects you'd then have only one level of conditions for each role.
You may also want to add the entire project contents into the cross-project shared project and then tinker around with the conditions in the company specific projects, which then end up being pretty much an empty shell.
Once set up that will hopefully give you a better handle on the complexity and allow for better scalability as well assuming that you keep the company / role levels and don't have to add in yet another one.
I recommend trying this out with a handful of topics to get some experience in how things behave. That will make slicing and dicing the real thing much easier.

[lacastle]

I tried something like this a while ago - http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... ONDITIONAL - but i think i ended up submitting a bug report and just creating separate projects for the "main" conditions and just using the "sub-conditions" in each project.

i'm not sure about how this works in v4, but you can submit a bug/enhancement request here - https://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx

[forfear]

Here's a little super tip when you get into single-sourcing... because i think i've gone down the path you have and discovered it was the type of 'single-sourcing' component i was using for the scenario.

How about trying variables for this example together with Conditional tags.

Is it possible to have Company A, Company B,and Company C as a Variable - Cust
Then add a ConditionTag for for CompanyA, CompanyB, CompanyC.

Try using Conditions together with Variables...first and adjust as necessary.

[RamonS]

That works OK as long as the only difference in content is something that can be handled with a variable. If there are company specific sections/topics then the variable won't do any good.

[bbuchko]

Yes, unfortunately, the features are slightly different for each company as well, so it's more than just swapping out the names. It's sounding more and more like I'll need to create separate projects for each company (as recommended above). With project sharing, maybe I can share the topics that don't have any company-level conditions and thus preserve at least some single-sourcing. Then, I can check "include" for the appropriate condition without worrying about it letting in info associated with the same role for a different company.

I wish we could apply multiple condition tag sets and have them act independently of one another, then assign priorities. So, I could have it apply my company condition first, and then, from the content that remains, apply the role condition.

Wonder if that's been suggested before...

EDIT: Submitted enhancement request for this.

[RamonS]

It probably has, but you can suggest it again. One other thing that comes to mind is if you have any conflicting conditions. If I recall correctly, when you set conditions that tell Flare to exclude and include the same portion the include one will win. Maybe you have it configured in the specific topics so that the same part is to be included and excluded.

[bbuchko]

That's exactly what the problem is, Ramon. Unfortunately, it's by design and can't be fixed unless I split it into separate projects. I'm applying multiple conditions to a single piece of text because it's applicable to multiple companies and roles, but not to ALL of them. The problem then becomes either info being included when it shouldn't be (if I include the conditions applicable to the targets) or info being left out when it shouldn't be (if I do not include anything and only exclude non-relevant portions).

If someone's already submitted that before me, I'm hoping the squeaky wheel will get the oil.

[RamonS]

Well, but when you tell Flare to include and exclude something at the same time, what is supposed to happen? Can't make a compromise and add in only every second character.
The multiple project approach isn't great, but with the content sharing across projects you at least don't end up with duplicate content and it lowers the level of complexity within each project by dispersing it over multiple projects. And that seems to be the way to go especially when you expect the whole help to grow in width. Just think if you'd have to add yet another five companies. I am sure you'd be glad to deal with just more project that each are simply conditioned rather than have to wrestle an ever growing blop.

[bbuchko]

Yup, that's the approach I'm going to take. However, I'm still holding out hope for multiple conditional tag sets applied to a single project someday.