Hosting WebeHelp, what do we need to be aware of?

[nickatwork]

Hi all,
We are currently evaluating H.A.Ts and I'm looking at Flare as well as 2 other products. Its the first time we are implementing them at my new job, so there is no existing webserver dedicated to hosting.
Because of this I'm trying to get a webserver setup, of course the engineers have some questions about all of this and I'm hoping you knowledgable people here can shed a little light. I'm pretty sure the answers here apply to most authoring tools, though if something is specific to Flare please shout.

1. Generated Help (WebHelp etc) once created, is completely stand alone, if it is then transferred to the webserver, is there any kind of communication back to where it originated from? I.E the source control DB or internal servers? They want to be sure they only have to secure the webserver and no internal servers from outside intrusion.

2. Can we simply dump the generated help onto the webserver without the need for say a DB or some other thing to be setup prior? They seemed to think that this content would need to be set in to a database for it to work.

3. Are there any costs (from Flare) regarding user access to the help, i.e. we upload the help to our webserver, 10,000 users access it, will Flare charge some kind of fee based on this?

4. Any additional points that I'm not thinking about regarding hosting this content online? We intend to have a secure webserver access to the help, but im not sure of what technical implications I may be missing that are key to getting this done.

Most of these questions I think I know the answer to, and from my experience, once you have the help, its standalone and can sit anywhere without a DB and no additional costs, but some of the engineers thing I'm wrong so I'm reaching out for concrete answers.

Thanks!
Nick

[LTinker68]

Some of your answers will depend on if you intend to generate WebHelp or WebHelp Plus. Or WebHelp Air and WebHelp Mobile. Which one(s) are you interested in? Most likely you're trying to decide between WebHelp and WebHelp Plus. It might also depend on if you're going to incorporate Feedback.

Click here to view the feature guide to review WebHelp versus WebHelp Plus and Feedback --> http://www.madcapsoftware.com/assets/Fl ... sGuide.pdf

The system requirements for WebHelp and WebHelp Plus --> http://kb.madcapsoftware.com/default_CSH.htm#IAR1001F
The system requirements for Feedback Explorer --> http://kb.madcapsoftware.com/default_CSH.htm#IAR1001FB
The system requirements for Feedback Server --> http://kb.madcapsoftware.com/default_CSH.htm#IAR1002FB

[SteveS]

Hi Nick,

Welcome to the forums.

I might have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, but...

Once you generate your 'help' from Flare you can do whatever you like with it.

When I was doing this sort of thing I would build the project and upload the generated webhelp to our website using a ftp client (filezilla). There was no connection back to our internal system, the transfer was a quick and easy dump, and there are no charges from Madcap to use the finished product.

HTH

[RamonS]

1. Generated Help (WebHelp etc) once created, is completely stand alone, if it is then transferred to the webserver, is there any kind of communication back to where it originated from? I.E the source control DB or internal servers? They want to be sure they only have to secure the webserver and no internal servers from outside intrusion.

2. Can we simply dump the generated help onto the webserver without the need for say a DB or some other thing to be setup prior? They seemed to think that this content would need to be set in to a database for it to work.

3. Are there any costs (from Flare) regarding user access to the help, i.e. we upload the help to our webserver, 10,000 users access it, will Flare charge some kind of fee based on this?

4. Any additional points that I'm not thinking about regarding hosting this content online? We intend to have a secure webserver access to the help, but im not sure of what technical implications I may be missing that are key to getting this done.

1. Yes, unless you use WebHelpPlus, then you need the extras, which only work on IIS (why, MadCap, why?).
2. Yes
3. No extra fees from MadCap...unless you use the hosted Feedback solution that MadCap offers, but you can host yourself with no ongoing fee.
4. Any web server will do that suits your security needs. I'm a devout Apache fan, but there are other web servers around. And yea, there is the real 'a patchy' IIS. Unless IT folks have the Microsoft-only blinders on stay away from that kludge.