3rd party software documentation

[Spreadbury, David]

We have a similar situation with one of our applications. What we have done is to include the vendor's documentation on the CD, with the vendors agreement, and those procedures that actually use the vendors software, reference the vendor docs but include the steps to perform the procedure. The vendor documentation covers it's use 'in general'. Our procedures take it a step further and direct the user in what to enter when answering prompts.

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+david.spreadbury=tellabs.com at lists.techwr-l.com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+david.spreadbury=tellabs.com at lists.techwr-l.com] On Behalf Of csouther at mindspring.com
Sent: Monday, May 15, 2006 7:56 AM
To: techwr-l at lists.techwr-l.com
Subject: 3rd party software documentation

All,

My company’s software is increasingly becoming more Web-based, which means there are lots of different 3rd party applications (mostly Microsoft) that it requires and whose options you need to tweak. 

My VP’s take on this is that if it affects the use of our applications, then we need to document how to configure these 3rd party applications.

My take is that someone else has already done the work, let’s just note the requirement and include a link (and check it periodically to ensure it remains active) to the original vendor’s configuration documentation. I don’t want there to be any hint of plagiarism and I figure the original designers know it best, so let them handle the docs.

I’m just curious how others handle this challenge.

Thanks,

Chris



Chris Souther
www.mindspring.com/~csouther
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