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Creating Custom Product Catalogs with DITA
Hal Trent – Senior Consultant Comtech Services, Inc. PTC Users
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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
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DITA as we know it Content Repository Help Topic Book Training Manual
Section 1 Overview 1 Content Repository Help Topic
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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
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Opportunities Aftermarket Pre-sales Product catalogues Price books
E-commerce applications On-demand Pre-sales Sales brochures & product bulletins Parts lists Data sheets
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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
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Challenges cont’ Standardize the data model
Streamline process for adding and maintaining data Transform data and merge it automatically with DITA content
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Data and information storage
Traditional relational database data storage vs. Technical documentation content management Do technical writers spend time working in both worlds?
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Data management Relational database Data fields Output Processing
Market trend analysis Price reports Technical specs Processing
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Component management Tech doc management Topic pool Multiple media
Print books HTML HTMLHelp PDF Processing
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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
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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
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Solutions cont’ Understand data infrastructure Platform
Current information workflow Shopping cart Database normalization and migration
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Parts catalog
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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
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DITA catalog topic <topic id="Cobra4CycleMotorOil"
xmlns:ditaarch=" <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>
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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>
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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>
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Parts catalog DITA Topic Table built from XSLT, based on metadata
P/N data from Relational DB
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parts merge & parts tables
Where we are now WC Topic Repository (content) XML (catalog data) XSLT parts merge & parts tables
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