With TopicPilot and COSIMA from DOCUFY, Siemens Mobility overcomes one of the most difficult challenges in technical documentation: users always find the right information in the right place at the right time, even if the database comprises thousands of pages.
Continue reading DOCUFY TopicPilot at Siemens Mobility – a success storyTag: Technical Documentation
20 years DOCUFY, 12 years cooperation with kothes
It has been more than twelve years since I walked over the tekom annual conference and looked around for a new component content management system. In 2006, the editorial staff at kothes consisted of about 20 employees. We wanted to make ourselves more professional and the use of XML was a very important criterion. So I took a close look at all the systems available on the market.
I didn’t even have DOCUFY on my screen. At that time Uwe Reißenweber was the only representative of his company at the booth of his partner OCE. I let him show me his editorial system COSIMA. At that time DOCUFY was clearly an outsider on the market. The company had only a few (but quite representative) customers and the system was not yet a ready-to-use standard system. It was rather a “project kit”, which was strongly customized.
A shared passion turns into a long-term partnership
I liked the technical approaches in the software and had the impression that we could work efficiently with it in the editorial department. I also liked the passion and depth with which Uwe explained his software. We soon realized that we were on the same page in many respects. Uwe’s readiness to develop the software into a standard system together with us made me all the more happy, and so the first approach of COSIMA go! was born.
Meanwhile a lot of time has passed and both companies have developed strongly. The business cooperation has become a friendship in many places. We have survived many turbulent times. Even though the business horizon of both companies has expanded considerably, we still work together constructively and amicably.
I would like to congratulate you on 20 years of successful business development and look forward to another 20 years of DOCUFY. Finally, a big thank you to all DOCUFY employees.
Gaming technology or industry-ready? The true added value of augmented reality
People glance at their smartphones an average of 100 times a day. You can see this behavior both on your way home on the subway and to an increasing extent in the workplace. When performing a task in the real world, our attention alternates constantly between observing information that is necessary for performance – on tablets, smartphones and computer screens alike – and focusing on the actual task at hand. Why is it still like that? Why hasn’t the way we consume information changed in more than 15 years?
Continue reading Gaming technology or industry-ready? The true added value of augmented reality
Chiron and DOCUFY
DOCUFY has been around for 20 years. We have been a customer for almost half that time. This brief article is intended to show how we have fared.
When mechanical engineers make documentation…
We first made contact with the company from Bamberg in late 2008 when we were looking for a replacement for our existing content management system. At that time, XML-based systems were still in the development phase.
DOCUFY’s first presentations won us over to the point that we included COSIMA on our shortlist. However, we were not able to accept the bid for a while as the mechanical engineering crisis got in our way.
WE are DOCUFY
WE – this is a “colourful bunch” of different age groups, educational levels, genders, strengths and knowledges. By now we have grown to a proud 103 employees (as of 01.04.2018) and the trend is still rising, because we are pursuing a common goal:
The revolution in technical documentation.
We work daily to optimize systems, processes and procedures, to develop new concepts and fill the information space with life. Hand in hand, for our customers, every day anew, fully motivated and with fun!
Dive into the cold water – with COSIMA go! Getting started completely without chattering teeth
Meister Strömungstechnik GmbH has been working with COSIMA go! since 2009. Based on the positive experience, it was soon became clear that the use of the CCMS would be expanded in the company. To this end, additional employees from different areas of the company are involved, who support the technical editing department.
New in COSIMA: IGEL – the integrated callout editor
Explaining complex issues in a simple way – often a very difficult task. Images can help illustrate what you want to say. Because you know: A picture says more than a thousand words! Especially in technical documentation graphics are used to put things in a nutshell. The reference of the graphics to the descriptive text is important. These references are created using item lines and/or item numbers, the so-called callouts. With COSIMA Release 7.0 you now have an integrated callout editor at your disposal with which you can easily add position numbers to your images yourself.
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DOCUFY Layouter: create your own layouts
Imagine there is a change in corporate design at your company. Maybe the change is only a general attempt to optimize existing layouts. Maybe it entails a completely new corporate identity with a new logo and different colors. Or maybe your company has a new division that makes new products. Any change, no matter what kind, will have a direct impact on your technical documentation. The cover page needs to be redesigned, and the way headers and footers look will change – as will headlines, safety notices and warnings. It is practical when technical writers can make these layout changes themselves, without any programming skills or troublesome extra work.
My Filter – filtered just for me
Hello TopicPilot Users (and Soon-to-be Users),
Searching and finding is exactly what TopicPilot was developed to do. Now you no longer have to start at the beginning every time you want to search for something. Faceted searches have always been a quick way of limiting the number of hits in TopicPilot. The solution also supports the use of QR codes and external links to help you access specific information quickly. Still, filtering can sometimes take a lot of time and effort.
A day in the life of an editorial department
In 2015, the SIEMENS AG Locomotive Documentation department wanted to introduce a Component Content Management System (CCMS) to optimize its editorial process and chose COSIMA go! from DOCUFY. In this article, system administrator Tobias Zieringer describes the introduction of the system:
… I had only just arrived in the office when my mobile rang. The sales department wanted to know when the documentation for our new customer would be ready, oh, and they needed replies to the review comments from last week as soon as possible.
My colleague gave me a questioning look: “How will we have time to introduce a new CCMS? What are the aims of the new system? Should we choose an off-the-shelf product, or start from scratch? And how does publication configuration even work?”
“Enough questions, let’s just get started,” I replied: “There no such thing as the perfect moment!”
Continue reading A day in the life of an editorial department