<font size=2 face="sans-serif">Jack,</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">My SME's work directly in unstructured
FrameMaker 9. We all work on the same set of files in a shared directory
on our corporate internet. I have a well-defined set of templates, along
with a well-defined set of Corporate Branding Standards and Grammar Standards.
I work closely with the SMEs. I help the SMEs set up the project, train
the SMEs in how to use the FrameMaker templates, edit their work to standards,
and guide the process from start through final approvals to publishing.
My deliverable is always PDF ready to print on standard 8 1/2 x 11 paper.
The PDF is posted on our internet page and/or shipped with product on a
Manuals CD. INFICON is ISO9001:2008 Registered. I am audited regularly.</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">There are 250 people at my location.
We have 15 copies of FrameMaker that rotate through many different SMEs,
depending on project activity. My Information Systems (IS) department manages
the FrameMaker licenses and installations, IS set up the shared directory,
and IS backs up the shared directory nightly. We've been doing this for
many years. Regular SMEs have become very proficient with FrameMaker. New
SMEs adapt to FrameMaker very quickly. We all have Win7 MSOffice Professional.
The SMEs use MSWord for many of their project documentation activities.
However, they prefer using FM for manuals and other customer-facing documents.</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">I don't use a CMS. All project related
files are kept in a shared directory. I use Bruce Foster's Archive plugin
to keep everything neat and tidy (and to archive the files to a secure
directory when the project is published.) In the past couple of years I
have looked closely at structured authoring, XML, DITA with a CMS. To me,
this approach is expensive while providing little added value and is therefore
difficult to justify. I agree that just a CMS may be helpful. But, even
just a decent CMS alone is hard to justify given its cost. Our current
methodology works so well for us that I need to see real value-added improvement
to justify the cost of changing. I've not seen them, yet.</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">My SMEs use FrameMaker 9, a digital
camera (to JPG), and a screen capture program (FullShot or Snagit to PNG).
It used to be that I was the only one to have Photoshop and Illustrator
to edit the JPG and PNG files. But, many of the SMEs have obtained these
programs because they watched what I could do with them, and they want
to use them for their other projects as well (e.g., Engineering Proposals).</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Don't be afraid of having your SMEs
use FrameMaker for authoring. As long as you have well-defined templates
backed up by corporate standards, you'll find that your SMEs will not have
any issues with working in FrameMaker. </font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif"><br>
Thanks!<br>
Richard<br>
<br>
______________________________<br>
<br>
Richard Inch<br>
Technical Documentation Manager<br>
Intelligent Sensor Solutions<br>
INFICON<br>
Two Technology Place<br>
East Syracuse, NY 13057-9714<br>
phone: +315.434.2507<br>
fax: +315.437.3803<br>
e-mail: richard.inch@inficon.com<br>
</font><a href=http://www.inficon.com/><font size=2 face="sans-serif">http://www.inficon.com</font></a><font size=2 face="sans-serif"><br>
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<br>
<br>
<br>
<br><font size=1 color=#5f5f5f face="sans-serif">From:
</font><font size=1 face="sans-serif">jackdeland@comcast.net</font>
<br><font size=1 color=#5f5f5f face="sans-serif">To:
</font><font size=1 face="sans-serif">framers@lists.frameusers.com</font>
<br><font size=1 color=#5f5f5f face="sans-serif">Date:
</font><font size=1 face="sans-serif">01/26/2012 03:56 PM</font>
<br><font size=1 color=#5f5f5f face="sans-serif">Subject:
</font><font size=1 face="sans-serif">FM + CMS + SMEs
w/o $$$?</font>
<br><font size=1 color=#5f5f5f face="sans-serif">Sent by:
</font><font size=1 face="sans-serif">framers-bounces@lists.frameusers.com</font>
<br>
<hr noshade>
<br>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="Arial">All,<br>
<br>
I have been tasked with finding a way to allow SME input directly into
our publishing workflow. That is, the developers and managers would be
able to edit text and add graphics to our source files. I want to keep
FrameMaker as the publishing engine. I'm thinking a CMS would be
in order, but the company is aghast at the thought of spending more than
10K a year on "word processing". I basically need functionality
something like Author-it that ties into Frame. I could do single-sourcing
with RH (we have TCS3.5). I'm thinking we would have 3 developers
at a time who might be using the system, plus me. That's a budget
of $2500 or less per year per user.<br>
<br>
Can anyone point me toward some current resources here? <br>
<br>
Thanks,<br>
<br>
Jack DeLand</font><tt><font size=2>_______________________________________________<br>
<br>
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