Suggested workflows for single-sourcing with FrameMaker -> RoboHelp + P4V

[Spencer Huff]

Good day everyone,

For the last few years, my company has been working towards 
single-sourcing the documentation we create (e.g. user manuals and 
integrated program help) for all of our products. We have one big 
product and quite a few smaller products, with each one having its own 
user manual and integrated help.  We use Adobe FrameMaker 11 and 
RoboHelp 10 to create and manage the content for our user manuals and 
integrated help respectively. We also use Perforce P4V for version 
control. Content typically is authored in FrameMaker first before being 
exported into RoboHelp as a .book file, which is then used to build our 
integrated help system.

Currently, half of our smaller products are single-sourced while the 
rest are curated by hand. We'd eventually like to have all of our 
products be single-sourced.  However, even with the products that are 
already single-sourced, we're having some issues with how our authoring 
software interacts with our version-control software. We've also had 
problems converting back and forth between .FM and .MIF formats. My 
question here is two-fold.

First, what is a good workflow(s) for single-sourcing content using 
FrameMaker, RoboHelp, and version control software?  Second, are there 
are other tools that we could use for such a workflow?  For instance, 
there's been some consideration about switching from FrameMaker to 
MadCap Flare. What is MadCap Flare better at doing than FM for 
single-sourcing?  What can be done to convert from using FM to MadCap 
Flare?  What would be potentially lost in doing
such a switch?  We've also been considering switch to the Adobe Creative 
Cloud, but before we make a decision one way or another, we'd like to 
nail these details down.

Any and all insight would be greatly appreciated.  If further details 
are required, I'd be happy to give them to the best of my ability.

-- 
Spencer C. Huff
Corporate Communications Specialist
TerraSim, Inc.                      (412) 232-3646 x 23
One Gateway Center, Suite 2050      (412) 232-3649 (Fax)
420 Fort Duquesne Blvd              sch at terrasim.com
Pittsburgh, PA 15222                http://www.terrasim.com