Ruckus Wireless
Let non-writers collaborate easily and reuse structured content from a single DITA-XML source
Context
Customer-facing technical documentation becomes more and more important
Ruckus Wireless, Inc., a CommScope company, has been a global supplier of carrier-class, Smart Wi-Fi products and technologies. Ruckus competes in the global market for mobile internet infrastructure and enterprise wireless LAN systems. The company is credited with developing the industry’s first adaptive Wi-Fi technology for carriers.
The company — “Ruckus Networks, a CommScope company” — stands on the following pillars:
- Performance: Ruckus’ deep history of technical innovation means superior, dependable networking performance for its customers—everywhere, all the time.
- Simplicity: Ease of installation and management for IT. Ease of use for end users. Ruckus also offers ease of doing business for its partners and customers.
- Options: Ruckus provides the utmost flexibility for the networking scenarios a business might have.
- Segments: Ruckus supports large enterprises, SMBs, carriers, service providers, educational institutions (K-12 and higher education), hospitality, MDU, retail, manufacturing, smart cities, public venues, and events.
In this context, customer-facing technical documentation becomes more and more important, in marketing, deployment guides, and release notes.
Challenge
Showcase the benefits of working with structured content
A previous pain-point was that marketing and engineering staff (non-writers) would “need” a technical writer to create content, revise content, or make any updates to the DITA-XML source. These non-writers do not have the knowledge, training, or time to use the technical writing tools. This meant the non-writers would email, phone call, or send Word documents or PDF markups with notes, that would then need to be transcribed into the source system by a technical writer.
To change this inefficient and often frustrating process, Ruckus wanted to let the non-writers, such as subject matter experts, marketers, product managers, and engineers, create and maintain structured content in an intuitive web-based system.
The goal was to let non-writers collaborate easily and reuse structured content from a single DITA-XML source.
Solution
Fonto Editor integrated in RWS Tridion Docs
This goal is achieved by integrating Fonto Editor with Ruckus’ existing DITA-XML content management system (RWS Tridion Docs). Fonto Editor is configured to provide a simplified user interface for non-writers, allowing them to modify existing topics and maps, as well as create new topics, for their documentation. It allows non-writers to be able to access documents they own for revision and PDF generation. These non-writers have plain-text editing access as well as PDF-generation capabilities.
A workflow is established in which the RWS Tridion Docs Admin gives non-writers access to requested documents for updates. When updates and reviews are finished, the PDF can be generated, finalized and released.
“Fonto Editor’s intuitive user interface and online accessibility empowers our
engineering and marketing staff to cut out the middle-man and directly contribute to
documentation development and maintenance.”
Fonto engaged experts and increased collaboration
Ruckus has empowered non-writers and reviewers by allowing them direct access to their content, to make revisions as needed. This lowered the turnaround time for revisions and updates and increased content quality and reuse.
Previously isolated Word documents can now be shared, and content can be reused in a topic-based format as needed. Engaged marketing staff, engineering staff, and product managers currently maintain release notes, data sheets, and design and deployment guides in this system.
The technical documentation staff retains access control to the DITA-XML content management system and can now provide non-writers access to the specific documentation they need to review and revise.
Takeaways
- Content quality increase
- Engaged experts
- Increased online collaboration
- Multichannel publishing
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