F5 + Heretto

Challenge 

F5 gives the world’s largest businesses, service providers, governments, and consumer brands the freedom to securely deliver every app, anywhere, confidently. F5 provides cloud and security application services that enable organizations to embrace their chosen infrastructure without sacrificing speed and control.

F5 began using DITA in 2009 for technical documentation, but their on-premise authoring and Component Content Management System (CCMS) was expensive and did not meet their needs for a streamlined review process. With 30 tech writers working with up to 200 engineers as Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), the review process, which consisted of collecting and reconciling PDF comments, was time-consuming and cumbersome. Completed reviews lagged behind the product release schedule, and there were high document revisions after the product release to address documentation quality.

Solution

F5 wanted to find a better way to engage SMEs for a more efficient review process and reduce the costs of their on-premise DITA-based authoring and CCMS solution. Heretto allows anyone in content development, regardless of their role or expertise with XML, to contribute to the quality of the documentation. 

They chose Heretto’s CCMS, which gave them the following:

• A highly secure SaaS solution with low start-up costs 
• Collaborative authoring and reviews with Heretto’s Topic Editor 
• The ability to create custom workflows for review and content approval 
• Intuitive user interface for easy onboarding of SMEs 
• Integration with oXygen XML
• Single sign-on (SSO) for users across the organization to easily access the system and work on content 

Results

F5 now has a genuinely efficient documentation development process. The process has improved and accelerated to the point where completely reviewed documentation is released on the same day as the software. Broader SME participation has improved the documentation quality and significantly reduced post-release revisions. By embracing and evangelizing structured content and the DITA open standard, F5 is finding new ways to leverage its content inside and outside the organization. 

Key results include:

• The elimination of the PDF review for a faster development cycle. 
• Synchronizing the documentation development and the software development schedule in an agile environment. 
• Improved collaboration and engagement with other departments in the company. 
• Extended online reviews to about 200 SMEs who have access to source content to directly edit, suggest, comment, or view content based on their permissions and assignments. 
• Reduced post-release document revisions from over 20-40 documents/releases to 2 documents/releases because of better online review and editing. 
• Publishing preparation has been reduced from approximately 30 minutes/document to instantaneous with the push of a button. 
• Better workflow metrics on document status and completion instance of reuse, eliminating version control issues. 

“Heretto is the best box of Legos ever! You can make whatever you need because you have the building blocks to create something that’s perfect for you. Heretto has done a great job developing a tool that can fit into a number of different environments.” Principal Content Experience Developer, F5

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