CAD Manual

[cadtag]

Aren't you guys ever worried about the fact that wikis have no real quality assurance checking system? If anyone can input data, who verifies the validity of that data?

I'd rather handle the data myself than have users just changing it to the way they want it and then saying "Well, it's in the standards like that."

Would that not be the CAD Manager's job??????? He can certainly pay attention to changes on the Wiki --they would not be anonymous on an intranet, and most probably a wiki could be set up to notify him/her of any edits or new pages being added. If a problem user is adding spurious bad information, then he's easily identified and a one-to-one discussion can be held to iron out the problem.

A basic Help/Standards web site with a single author has update and currency issues. It's _hard_ to take the time to write between getting jobs out the door, solving problems, doing development, handling management expectations, kicking the cat, etc etc etc. That author becomes a bottleneck just as much as a gateway. It's an approach that minimizes the potential for problem edits, but also reduces the quality and public 'ownership' of the product. It can't get any better than he alone can make it, and it's his -- not the users.

Compiled HTML help is convenient to access, but a pain to update - since the files won't run off a network they need to be loaded on each PC. A Wiki really gives you the best of both worlds (and can certainly include static or protected pages that hold your cast-in-stone requirements)

[Comach]

Aren't you guys ever worried about the fact that wikis have no real quality assurance checking system?

Exactly my point.

A CAD Manual is a Quality Controlled document – this document requires an approval process – the ownership, editing and control of this document is with the originator. Edits and updates must be approved before implementation - revision control and approval signatures must be an integral part of the process.

Changes to a cad manual after approval and subsequent issue may have cost implications as well as impact to project schedules.

Cad Tips and Technotes should be considered separate to the content of a cad manual.

[RobertB]

Exactly my point.

A CAD Manual is a Quality Controlled document – this document requires an approval process – the ownership, editing and control of this document is with the originator. Edits and updates must be approved before implementation - revision control and approval signatures must be an integral part of the process.

Changes to a cad manual after approval and subsequent issue may have cost implications as well as impact to project schedules.

Cad Tips and Technotes should be considered separate to the content of a cad manual.

We are using a wiki hosted by SharePoint. So I can control the published content.

[pjohnson.137155]

Wiki, help file, share point all good ideas, but the most important item is making it easy to use so it is used and viewed by the end user which will mean that your cad standards are adhered to.

I will throw this idea out there, what if you were to build logic into your cad files so if the user ask a question that section of the help will pop up. What i mean is say in the command prompt you type ?Layers and your standard layers pop up on the screen from where ever you have your standards saved. I do not think this would be to difficult to do.

What do you all think?

Patrick K Johnson
http://www.cadenhancement.com

[-SL-]

This is an interesting discussion that has developed here on the last couple of pages.

I think the argument can be made for a wiki and for the help file - with complately valid reasons for both methods.

For those that maintain a wiki... what's the "backup-ability" of the wiki's info? Can it be backed up reliably? (My thought process here is that the help file method has a good chance of staying backed up since it's just copying & saving a file or group of files.)

[Ken Cover]

I did some research a couple of years back because we really had no written standard. I found that having a committee formed with CAD Techs and Engineers/Arch would make it easier to create and implement.

After over a year of working out the details, we finally formed a Committee in April and are starting to get a good standard written. Since we are a Structural Firm, we have also used the National CAD Standard as a guideline for some of the items.

[RobertB]

For those that maintain a wiki... what's the "backup-ability" of the wiki's info? Can it be backed up reliably? (My thought process here is that the help file method has a good chance of staying backed up since it's just copying & saving a file or group of files.)

The data on our SharePoint server is backed up just like any other server.