[Framers] FrameMaker and Salesforce

[John Sgammato]

Hi Robyn,
We author in unstructured FM 2015 and publish to Salesforce Knowledge (as
well as many other outputs). It's a non-trivial process, but as luck would
have it I will be doing it on Friday and I have already set up a WebEx for
three other interested parties, so I can add you if you like.
I presented about it at the STC conference in Phoenix a couple of years
ago. You can see the slides at
http://www.slideshare.net/JohnSgammato/putting-it-where-they-need-it-35021550?qid=8a3f7e16-4aa9-4d67-93ac-0c588f5e2ae6&v=&b=&from_search=1

I have refined the procedure a little since then to make it easier.

In brief:

   1. We author in unstructured *FM 2015*.
   2. I use *FrameScript* and some custom scripts to add metadata for
   filtering in Salesforce.
   3. I use *Mif2Go *to process the content in XHTML.
   4. I run another script to process it all into a Zip file that *Salesforce
   Knowledge* can import.
   5. The Salesforce admin runs the import and publishes the content.

All the FM x-refs are honored in the final k-base articles, so it is very
powerful. Our Support guys love it.
I'll be going through the process on Friday at 1pm EST. If you want to tag
along, I'll be happy to add you to the WebEx.
Note that this is a powerful way to import hundreds of topics into a
knowledge base, so you want to plan ahead to think about your user
experience. We use filters to make it easier for customers to search
through the content and see only what they need. That requires metadata
from you and filters from your Salesforce admin.

In other news, we are also a Mac house. Over three years of
trial-and-error, we have determined that our best setup is Bootcamp on the
Mac, not Parallels and not VirtualMachine.


On Wed, Mar 9, 2016 at 3:26 PM, Robyn Chittister <rchittister at vlocity.com>
wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Does anyone use FrameMaker and then integrate that documentation with
> Salesforce?
>
> I'm 1 of 1-1/2 technical writers at a start up that creates cloud apps for
> Salesforce. We are currently using Salesforce Knowledge to create and
> deliver our documentation. Knowledge is possibly the worst documentation
> tool I have ever used. We've been looking at various single-sourcing
> solutions, and we're down to MadCap Flare and FrameMaker.
>
> I'm a FrameMaker user from way back - I started with FM+SGML 5.5 in 1999. I
> developed templates and tools for FM+SGML and FM+XML from 1999-2005. I've
> used FM 12 in an unstructured environment, and am happy to see the
> improvements. I'm not sure how many improvements there have been in the
> structured environment, however. I've tried to contact Adobe, and have
> gotten a human being to say he'll give my questions to a solutions
> specialist to answer. Knowing Adobe, I'm not going to hold my breath.
>
> My questions are:
>
>    - Is anyone here writing doc for Salesforce or Salesforce apps? If so,
>    what tools do you use?
>    - Is there a good comparison of the most recent versions of Flare v. FM?
>    The only ones I've been able to find are from several years ago.
>    - Is anyone here using FM+XML (either v12 or 2015) who could answer some
>    specific questions I have about it?
>
>
> We're a Mac house, so I can't just download the trial versions. We
> understand that we will need to get me set up with a VM and Windows to use
> the software we choose.
>
> Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
>
> ~Robyn
>
> --
>
>
> *Robyn Chittister  |  Senior Technical Writer*
>
> E: rchittister at vlocity.com  |  P: 925.695.5710 |  W: www.vlocity.com
> <http://www.vlocity.com/>
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