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Creating Custom Product Catalogs with DITA

Creating Custom Product Catalogs with DITA. Hal Trent – Senior Consultant Comtech Services, Inc. PTC Users. Merging data & DITA. DITA as we know it is mostly after-market New opportunities Pre-sales Commerce Point of sale Challenges of merging data and DITA Solutions. Book. Overview 1.

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Creating Custom Product Catalogs with DITA

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  1. Creating Custom Product Catalogs with DITA Hal Trent – Senior Consultant Comtech Services, Inc. PTC Users

  2. Merging data & DITA • DITA as we know it is mostly after-market • New opportunities • Pre-sales • Commerce • Point of sale • Challenges of merging data and DITA • Solutions

  3. Book Overview 1 Content Repository DITA as we know it Training Manual Section 1 Help Topic

  4. DITA as we know it • Single-sourced DITA enables higher levels of reuse, consistency, usability, output variants • Most current implementations involve after-market technical content • Data is • maintained separately (RDBMS, spreadsheets, etc.)‏ • manually integrated with DITA

  5. Opportunities • Aftermarket • Product catalogues • Price books • E-commerce applications • On-demand • Pre-sales • Sales brochures & product bulletins • Parts lists • Data sheets • On-demand

  6. Challenges • Standardize the flow of information • Identify various data sources and formats and normalize the data stream • Relational database • Spreadsheets • Custom database apps • Determine ownership of single source

  7. Challenges cont’ • Standardize the data model • Streamline process for adding and maintaining data • Transform data and merge it automatically with DITA content

  8. Data and information storage • Traditional relational database data storage vs. • Technical documentation content management • Do technical writers spend time working in both worlds?

  9. Output Market trend analysis Price reports Processing Technical specs Data management Relational database Data fields

  10. Multiple media Print books HTML Processing HTMLHelp PDF Component management Tech doc management Topic pool

  11. Publishing Workflow XML (price book data)‏ Price Book E-commerce tab-delimited XSLT parts merge & parts tables Web Relational DB DITA Topics‏ XML (catalog data)‏ WC Topic Repository (content)‏ Catalog XSLT parts merge & parts tables DITA Topics‏ XSLT parts merge & parts tables

  12. Solutions • Understand and single source data for catalog and pricing outputs • Design metadata strategy for multiple outputs, dealers, and languages • Single source information for internal and external websites

  13. Solutions cont’ • Understand data infrastructure • Platform • Current information workflow • Shopping cart • Database normalization and migration

  14. Parts catalog

  15. Publishing pipeline • Isolate data within XML DB using metadata • Otherprops • Outputclass • Product • Platform XML (catalog data)‏ Price Book WC Topic Repository (content)‏ Catalog Publish XSLT parts merge & parts tables E-commerce tab-delimited

  16. DITA catalog topic <topic id="Cobra4CycleMotorOil" xmlns:ditaarch="http://dita.oasis-open.org/architecture/2005/"> <title>Cobra 4 Cycle</title> <shortdesc>The XD 100 synthetic formula oil provides… <shortdesc> <body> <ol> <li>Handles the newest API…</li> <li>…</li> <li>…</li> </ol>

  17. DITA catalog topic <table audience="XD100" importance="urgent" otherprops=“N/A" outputclass="Oil and Engine Care" platform="Engine Oil" product="Cobra4Cycle"> <tgroup cols="7"><colspec colname="col1"/> <colspec colname="col7"/> <tbody> <row> <entry>775597</entry> <entry>Filler information</entry> </row> </tbody> </tgroup> </table>

  18. XML database <PY09_x0020_Catalog_x0020_parts> <Part_x0020_Number>775597</Part_x0020_Number> <Selling_x0020_Suffix>DN3H57</Selling_x0020_Suffix> <Mainframe_x0020_desc>PATCH,100TH ANNVSY</Mainframe_x0020_desc> <Catalog_x0020_Description>Envinrude/Johnson 4-Stroke, Quart<Catalog_x0020_Description> <Dlr_x0020_Pkg>1</Dlr_x0020_Pkg> <Product_x0020_code>24</Product_x0020_code>

  19. Parts catalog DITA Topic Table built from XSLT, based on metadata P/N data from Relational DB

  20. Where we are now WC Topic Repository (content)‏ XML (catalog data)‏ XSLT parts merge & parts tables

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