Online help customisation

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Preeti
Jr. Propeller Head
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Jul 18, 2018 5:06 pm

Online help customisation

Post by Preeti »

Hi,
We use HTML5 + Side nav for our online help. When customers install our product, online help is also installed.
We have received a requirement from a customer that they want the ability to add their content into our help and also to edit sections of our help. My first thought was that they can edit a topic in our help output and add a link to their content. Or maybe they can link up our help from their help. But they want an integrated solution where they can search across both helps. Is this possible? And if it is, what will happen when they upgrade to a newer version of our product, because our product help will be automatically installed when they upgrade.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
~P
Sofie Bird
Propeller Head
Posts: 18
Joined: Sat Nov 09, 2013 12:51 am

Re: Online help customisation

Post by Sofie Bird »

Searching across multiple sites is possible with something like Coveo, or similar multi-site search platforms. They're generally not cheap, (the ones that do seem cheap make up for it by being unbelievably difficult to get working properly). So that's option one: two separate sites with a combined search, and they push all their internal staff to always try the search first rather than browsing either help site.

Regarding editing your content themselves... If they physically edit the files, there is no way to preserve those changes when you do an update. They could create a page-for-page version that loads your help in a frame (or via xhr if they value their mobile experience) so they can have their comments/edits next to / above your content. That way your content updates won't impact theirs, but this is a fair whack of effort on their part.

If they're not wanting ad-hoc edits, you could possibly offer them a maintenance contract, where they submit the changes that they want, which you include in your help via conditions and publish a special edition for them. Whether or not your company wants the overhead of managing this depends on how important a client they are. :wink: It also won't help if they want anyone to be able to edit the files whenever.
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