Interactive WebHelp

Background

The administration of training courses takes place at several levels. Course and instructor data are managed in a central training database. An in-house training Web portal, which was created using RoboInfo® software, is used for course organization and information. The central training database and the Web portal content were previously created and managed by a central department. This method had limitations for the following reasons:

The effort involved in collecting the data from different sources is too great and delays data accessibility.
Entering the data manually involves extensive time and is prone to error.
The technical features of RoboInfo do not provide the necessary administrative support.

The aim was, therefore, to reorganize and improve the flexibility of the Web portal content management. Data related to course organization should be managed by different persons. Up-to-date data should be accessible to all users via the Web portal.

Main Challenges

Defining Content

One of the biggest challenges was to define which content should be managed by the central department using RoboInfo and which content should be managed decentrally by individual persons. In the beginning, many people wanted as much content as possible to be managed decentrally. However, it soon became clear that this was not the most efficient approach. The course descriptions were written inconsistently, and it wasn't long before even well-structured descriptions deteriorated in quality. After a number of test phases, it became increasingly evident that the best solution would be for the central documentation department to continue being responsible for all descriptive content that was to be maintained over longer periods. The following figure shows a typical course description whose content is managed by the central documentation department:

At the same time, all data with a short lifetime that often change at the last minute, such as the name of course instructor, the version of the course material being used, examples, etc., should be managed decentrally. The following figure shows a typical example of course data which can be edited by an instructor:

Integrating Roles

We have observed that course attendees frequently ask questions before a course begins, and, of course, questions also arise after a course has been held. Attendees usually send their questions to the department responsible for course administration, which then passes these questions on to the respective instructor. The problem with this procedure is that the instructor receives questions at a much later date, and, if there is a change of instructor, instructors sometimes never receive questions at all.We have therefore integrated a feature that allows attendees to submit questions directly. To implement this feature, we introduced an advanced role concept, based on user rights and password entry. We created a special input field which attendees use to enter and submit their questions.

Main tools and technologies used for the project

The complete solution uses RoboInfo X3, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Microsoft SQL Server. However, our application is platform-independent and not dependent on Microsoft products.The following figure shows the main system architecture:

Summary of achievements and lessons learned

By integrating the possibility to interactively edit content in the portal, the quality of content has dramatically improved, especially with regard to the accessibility to up-to-date information. The instructors greatly appreciate the user-friendly features of the RoboInfo portal, with its advanced navigation options and the ability to edit data at any time. Comet has developed an interactive WebHelp solution that meets the customer's current requirements and also leaves scope for further enhancements.

Vortragspräsentation (PDF)