Tag-based list for Related Information

[Nina Esile]

Hi all,

This may be a tall order, but I have to ask.

I'd like to tag all my help files using a collection of tags such as #gettingstarted, #training, #metrics, #assignment and so on. Then, on each of the help pages, I'd like to create a Related Information section that is auto-populated based on tags.

Does anyone know if this is possible in Flare?

Thanks,

Nina

[NorthEast]

There's a few features in Flare you could use.

First, take a look at Concepts.
You add concept markers to topics. Then you can insert Concept Links, to create a list of links to topics with particular concepts.
You can also use concept markers for search filters, so you can filter the search results by concept.
http://webhelp.madcapsoftware.com/flare ... ncepts.htm

The second option is Relationship tables.
Here you can group together topics, categorise them by the type of topic, and choose how the topics in a group are linked.
http://webhelp.madcapsoftware.com/flare ... Tables.htm

[Nina Esile]

Thanks Dave Lee. I'm going to check out both and see which one works.

One thing that is important: if I tag the files with concept tags, will another web system be able to use MadCap concept tags as metadata for use in aggregating information. For example, my company may want to develop a knowledge base using some other tool but incorporate the files I have created in Flare. Will the Flare concept tags be useful to that yet-to-be-named knowledge base?

[NorthEast]

Thanks Dave Lee. I'm going to check out both and see which one works.

One thing that is important: if I tag the files with concept tags, will another web system be able to use MadCap concept tags as metadata for use in aggregating information. For example, my company may want to develop a knowledge base using some other tool but incorporate the files I have created in Flare. Will the Flare concept tags be useful to that yet-to-be-named knowledge base?

It'll add the concept marker in the HTML of the topic, which appears in the output too; e.g. <MadCap:concept term="your-concept" />

So it's there - it just depends on whether the tool you're using can extract that information from the HTML. That's a question for the person who's implementing it.

Bear in mind that Flare has a knowledgebase template, and its own KB is produced using Flare:
http://kb.madcapsoftware.com/