New & Improved Documentation

Documentation is sometimes thought of as one of the least interesting parts of software development and is often a neglected aspect of the process. Otherwise excellent suites of software are often let down by poor quality or incredibly threadbare manuals that make them frustrating to use.

Here at WJP Software, I (Tobias) am on a mission to go through and overhaul our existing software documentation, starting with our Web Communication System. The team did a great job with it, but through my newly instated role of Support Technician, I can really give this area the focus it needs and free up the developers to do their thing!

If you ever visited the old WCS documentation site, and now visit the new one you’ll notice a lot has changed:

• All existing sections been rewritten, providing more detail and more focused screenshots so that every step in each process is covered thoroughly but concisely.
• Additional sections have been added to cover newer WCS features such as Newsletter Mailouts, User Auditing, Image Galleries, and User Profiles.
• There are constant links between different sections – if one guide relies on knowledge obtained or tasks undertaken in another, this is made clear and linked accordingly.
• A few sections now contain video guides – some people find a real-time walk-through easier to follow and this is an area I really want to expand on in future to cover all common tasks users are likely to want to accomplish with the system.

And the future plans for Documentation here at WJP Software?
Our upcoming MRS 3 will be the next big undertaking – a daunting prospect considering how much it can do! Recording a full suite of video tutorials is also on the cards and, as a company, we don’t want to take a ‘once-and-done’ approach to our documentation, so keeping everything up-to-date with the new features and updates that are being constantly added will keep me busy for a long time to come!

In case you missed it earlier, here is the link to the new WCS Documentation and, as always, let us know your thoughts and in particular, if there’s a feature of the system you’d like to see covered in a video tutorial!

Published: 22/12/2020 Published by: WJPS

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