Flare best practices for multiple writers?

[Centauri27]

For the first time since switching to Flare, we will soon have a second tech writer join the team. I'd like to hear your hints, tips, and best practices on multiple writers working on the same project using Flare.

In a previous company, we used a somewhat kludgy workaround with RoboHelp that involved "checking out" the main project file only if TOC and indexing changes were required, otherwise you would use a "read only" version of the project file if you only needed to edit existing topics. Will I have to do something similar with Flare?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Carl

[i-tietz]

We are 6 tech writers working on a few projects and indeed we use Source Control (MS VSS). When generating the database in MS VSS we set it to blocking files that are checked out so no other can work on the same file. The database also gives us the chance to have standard files in more than one project and still have only one person working on each of those files - if it's checked out in one project we get that information in all those projects containing the file.

It has its flaws, especially with new files and folders and deleted ones - so you still have to communicate outside of Flare, but generally it's working well.

[alaltenburg]

I agree that source control for checking in and out files is the best method, then there is less of a chance of overlapping changes.