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
DITA as we know it Content Repository Help Topic Book Training Manual Section 1 Overview 1 Content Repository Help Topic
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
Opportunities Aftermarket Pre-sales Product catalogues Price books E-commerce applications On-demand Pre-sales Sales brochures & product bulletins Parts lists Data sheets
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
Challenges cont’ Standardize the data model Streamline process for adding and maintaining data Transform data and merge it automatically with DITA content
Data and information storage Traditional relational database data storage vs. Technical documentation content management Do technical writers spend time working in both worlds?
Data management Relational database Data fields Output Processing Market trend analysis Price reports Technical specs Processing
Component management Tech doc management Topic pool Multiple media Print books HTML HTMLHelp PDF Processing
Publishing Workflow DITA Topics XML (catalog data) Catalog XSLT parts merge & parts tables E-commerce tab-delimited DITA Topics XSLT parts merge & parts tables Web Relational DB WC Topic Repository (content) XML (price book data) Price Book XSLT parts merge & parts tables
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
Solutions cont’ Understand data infrastructure Platform Current information workflow Shopping cart Database normalization and migration
Parts catalog
parts merge & parts tables 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
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> </ol>
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>
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>
Parts catalog DITA Topic Table built from XSLT, based on metadata P/N data from Relational DB
parts merge & parts tables Where we are now WC Topic Repository (content) XML (catalog data) XSLT parts merge & parts tables