Making the most out of the Global Project Link Feature in Madcap Flare

1. 8/20/2013 Footer 1
LINK YOUR WAY TO SUCCESSFUL
CONTENT MANAGEMENT
Making the most out of the Global Project Link Feature in Madcap Flare

2. 8/20/2013 Footer 2
• Introductions
• Overview
• What is Global Project Linking
• Demonstration
• Questions?
AGENDA

3. 8/20/2013 Footer 3
• Information Architect with Blackbaud, Inc.
• 15 years experience
• Varied responsibilities
- Creating and maintaining 1000s of pages of user-end documentation
- Technical-project lead investigating new tools, best practices, and workflows
for a 22-member documentation team
- Led team’s move three years ago to MadCap Flare
• Past presentations:
- Adobe FrameMaker to Madcap Flare at the 2011 WritersUA Conference
- Agile-based development process at the 2010 WritersUA Conference
- Structured authoring, trends in Technical Communication, and indexing at
various local and international STC conferences
• Part-time instructor at John Carroll University in Cleveland, OH
- Teach the Technical Writing course included in the school’s Professional
Writing program
ABOUT ME

4. 8/20/2013 Footer 4
• Global Project Link functionality available in MadCap Flare
- How it can be used to maximize content reuse
- While also helping you to manage large libraries of content
- How to link projects
- How to manage what content is included in each linked workflow
- Sticking points/issues
WHAT WE WILL COVER

5. 8/20/2013 Footer 5
- We’ve been at over three years now
- This is why we selected Flare as our tool
- We’ve had great successes
- We’ve had headaches (version 8)
- We’ve seen it all…..
WHY DO YOU CARE WHAT I THINK?

6. 8/20/2013 Footer 6
LET’S GET STARTED

7. 8/20/2013 Footer 7
• Import content and project files contained in another Flare project
(parent project)
• Allows you to maintain information in one location but reuse it in other
projects (child projects)
• Process allows you to select which files you want to include and
exclude
• Bottom line:
- Build output pulling in content from several different locations
- Granular control
WHAT IS GLOBAL LINKING?

8. 8/20/2013 Footer 8
• When you create a global link in a child project, you can:
- Automatically re-import before generating output
- Remove “stale” files (deleted, renamed, moved)
- Specify what type of files you want to include
- Specify what type of files you want to exclude
- Select specific files to include
- Add additional filters based on condition tags
WHAT IS GLOBAL LINKING?

9. 8/20/2013 Footer 9
• For example:
- Include all topic (htm) and image files
- Exclude all template files: CSS, condition tags, masterpage
• Best to include template files in a separate “Template” import
- Include all content tagged with “Online” condition tag
- Exclude all content tagged with “Print” condition tag
WHAT IS GLOBAL LINKING?

10. 8/20/2013 Footer 10
LET’S GO TO THE DEMO

11. 8/20/2013 Footer 11
• It is complicated
• If you hurry, you will make mistakes
• Not for everyone
• Imports can hang/break
• Error message that stop the process and tell you NOTHING
DRAWBACKS

12. 8/20/2013 Footer 12
• MadCap’s Global Project Linking Guide
• Feel free to contact me with any questions/observations/tips:
denise.kadilak@blackbaud.com
RESOURCES