Re: Confluence Usage

[Laura Phillips <laurap -at- pluribusnetworks -dot- com>]

We just got a new program manager who mentioned that her previous company used it with "great" success. I looked at the pricing and to support the potential number of collaborators, weâd have to pay $300 per month. Given that my FM subscription is substantially less than that, I didnât really explore it any further when I was looking at options 2 years ago. 

I am not confident that engineering would buy into a collaborative system when I can barely get functional specs written for features. Itâs usually an email or text in a bug that requires further investigation on my part. Iâm also hesitant about the learning curve and time required to put together a working version of Confluence. Iâm still the only pubs person, and our release cycles can be brutal when supporting customer requests. We donât use Agile as a development methodology so itâs more of an ordered chaos process. 

Anyway, thatâs the core issue around moving to this type of authoring process.

Thanks,
Laura

From:  <vwritert -at- gmail -dot- com> on behalf of John G
Date:  Tuesday, July 14, 2015 at 11:53 AM
To:  Laura Phillips
Cc:  Sharon Metzger, "techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com"
Subject:  Re: Confluence Usage

Laura - what are your concerns? If you stated specific areas we could provide feedback on them rather than generalities.

IMHO, no tool is perfect. This one is about as good as it gets. I sorta agree with Sharon about PDF quality but we don't produce PDFs - we let our users have the wiki version. There are sufficient controls to let you turn things on and off to get the level of control and feedback you are comfortable with. I have to say that this is one of my favorite tools of all time - second only to Dreamweaver. You couldn't drag me back to Frame if you tried!

And - it has a cool factor!

My 2Â,
JG


On Tue, Jul 14, 2015 at 2:07 PM, Laura Phillips <laurap -at- pluribusnetworks -dot- com> wrote:
Thanks for the feedback so far. Iâm just not sure if itâs the right move at this time, but youâve all given me something to think about.

Laura




On 7/14/15, 10:56 AM, "Sharon Metzger" <sharon -dot- metzger -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:

>I've been using Confluence since November. We currently deliver PDFs only.
>It was here when I got here, and has had a series of (now moved-on) tech
>writers working on various versions and various templates.
>
>Our software shop uses lots of Atlassian tools (Jira, Stash, HipChat, etc),
>so the fact that all the tools play well together is attractive.
>
>Built-in PDF export is challenging. Your CSS savvy will be stretched, and
>there's still some black magic under the covers. I'm currently working on
>templates for the Scroll PDF Exporter (eval version), but that seems to have
>different quirks than the built-in PDF, so the jury's still out.
>
>Our engineers and sales/product folks use it extensively for an internal
>wiki. (design docs, release plans, roadmaps, customer wish lists, general
>how-tos, and the like).  They've gotten much better at posting things since
>I've jumped in as an active curator -- customizing the dashboard, archiving
>obsolete pages, generally making it easier to find what's current, etc.
>
>They also like collaborating and commenting on the doc sources. I was
>nervous about the collaboration (that engineers would go in mucking up all
>my carefully crafted professional-writer work), but for the most part, they
>use the page and inline comment features and don't edit "my" sources. They
>also like the Comala Workflows plugin I've implemented for review cycles and
>signoffs.
>
>So, with caveats, it's working for us. I still miss Frame (which I lived in
>for 15-20 years) and would love to get a chance to learn Flare. There are
>enough quirks in Confluence's WYSISometimes/SortaWYG (agree on the necessity
>of the source editor) and PDF production to make me hold back on a
>wholehearted recommendation. Lists and nested lists are my nemesis. As are
>pagebreaks.  But then, there's a whole community of folks out there who love
>it and think it's the best thing since spell-check. I haven't found the
>Kool-Aid yet, but it's hard to say where to draw the line between my still
>less than expert knowledge and Confluence's real limitations.
>
>FWIW,
>Sharon
>
>PS -- Robert -- I suspect I'd be interested in your pagebreak
>macros/pointers. And thanks for your comments about Scroll HTML exporter vs
>Confluence web delivery.
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: techwr-l-bounces+sharon -dot- metzger=gmail -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+sharon -dot- metzger=gmail -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
>Behalf Of John G
>Sent: Monday, July 13, 2015 9:45 PM
>To: Laura Phillips
>Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>Subject: Re: Confluence Usage
>
>We've been using Confluence for our context-sensitive online help for the
>past 18 months or so. We use the Scroll Versions add on to allow us to have
>multiple doc versions (past, present, future releases) which adds complexity
>but provides features we require. We also localize into three languages.
>
>We also use Confluence extensively for internal communications - various
>teams and departments use it to develop and host content.
>
>It's gained wide popularity due to its ease of use. PDF capability is merely
>adequate.
>
>I like using it as I can focus on content and not have to worry about
>formatting.
>
>
>
>
>On Monday, July 13, 2015, Laura Phillips <laurap -at- pluribusnetworks -dot- com>
>wrote:
>
>>
>> Hi there,
>>
>> Are many companies using Confluence as the main tool for getting
>> product information to customers? Since it is collaborative, what is
>> the buy in necessary from the engineering group? Is that crucial to
>> the success or failure of using the tool?
>>
>> Is it worth the effort to learn it and then subsequently maintain it?
>>
>> Just looking for any feedback or experience using Confluence,
>>
>> Laura
>>
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>
>--
>Sent from my iPad, please excuse any automatically created mis-corrections
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