3 Companies That Transformed Their Content Delivery with Fluid Topics

Keeping Up With The Fast Pace of Product Releases 

Hexagon is a global leader in sensor, software and autonomous solutions. Hexagon’s Asset Lifecycle Intelligence division puts data to work to boost efficiency, productivity and quality and its solutions empower its clients to transform unstructured information into smart digital assets.

When Hexagon set out to shift its software products to SaaS, moving from a standard biannual or annual release mode down to four-week build cycles for many products, Lonnye Yancey-Smith, Director – User Assistance, needed to ensure that the documentation team could keep up with such a pace.

As the documentation was bundled with the product, changes to documentation often meant a new build needed to be launched and tested before release, necessarily adding time to the product delivery process itself.

“We needed to decouple the delivery of documentation from the product build and gain the capability to publish documentation as frequently as needed, including between product releases,” Lonnye Yancey-Smith said.

Hexagon quickly determined that it needed a Content Delivery Platform (CDP) to enable the continuous content delivery the new model required, and ensure the optimal usability of technical content.

With Fluid Topics’ native integration for Hexagon’s long-established authoring tool, Author-it, Hexagon’s documentation team can self-publish tech documentation as frequently as required, directly from Author-it and in a fully automated process – there was no need for additional IT work or support once the integration was done.

The CDP also offers the company a single place – the documentation portal – where customers, users, and support teams can find all of the documentation and that guarantees that the freshest content is always available.

Results from implementing Fluid Topics 

• +64% users between Q1 and Q4 2020
• 2 weeks saved in the delivery process

Turning The Company’s Documentation Portal Into Their Most Visited Website 

Teradata is the connected multi-cloud data platform for enterprise analytics. The solution is delivered in a consistent manner in the cloud, on multiple clouds, on-premises, or any combination thereof.  

As such, the company needs to serve technical product documentation to various audiences including administrators, data analysts, business analysts and developers. 

Historically, Teradata created technical content using 6 different tools. The customer experience for finding and accessing the right content in the place and moment of need was dreadful. The information was so dispersed that the content publishing experience was inconsistent and unfriendly. 

Similarly to Hexagon, the release of new content was tightly integrated with the software deployment process which prevented the team from updating it as frequently as needed and providing the latest information. 

After evaluating a variety of potential vendors, Teradata launched a new cloud-based Content Delivery Platform, powered by Fluid Topics. The platform collects and unifies the company’s technical content and publishes it on the documentation portal at the click of a button. 

• Real-time publishing: The DITA content is created with IXIASOFT using oXygen XML Author. A dedicated connector enables the team to publish directly to Fluid Topics from IXIASOFT, offering a frictionless delivery experience. 
• Single, unified user experience: The team has successfully consolidated the company’s technical content silos into a single knowledge center. Teradata’s customers and partners can now self-serve from any location on mobile, tablet or desktop devices. 
• Interactive knowledge: Customers get to create and manage collections of documents, bookmark their favorite content and save searches. 

 “Fluid Topics is a huge leap forward for us. The content delivery portal has grown to become an enterprise resource that directly supports our internal teams and our customers,” Beth McFadden, Technical Project Manager for Content Operations at Teradata, said. 

 Results from implementing Fluid Topics 

•  5 million visits on the documentation portal in 1 year

Promoting Self-Service Information 

SwissQprint is a world leader in the development and manufacture of high-end digital printing systems used by professionals to apply lettering and artwork onto a wide variety of surfaces. 

Originally, they provided product documentation in the form of large PDF documents, essentially one for every type of machine, and also for every individual configuration of that machine. The information was available, but even seasoned technicians or users had a challenging time locating it. Consequently, support calls were increasing and the cost of delivering this support was spinning out of control. 

On top of selecting Fluid Topics as their Content Delivery Platform, they moved their content creation to DITA and introduced DITAToo, a Component Content Management System. Combining DITAToo and Fluid Topics means they can create, update and publish technical content at a pace that fits with product changes and upgrades. If there is new information to publish, they can easily do so without worrying about reformatting a PDF manual. 

The granularity of structured content means that search results in the portal are even more precise: Fluid Topics fully indexes and searches PDFs very efficiently, but with structured content, the Fluid Topics search and reading capabilities is enhanced by the granularity of the content. 

“In the first month after launching the self-service technical documentation portal we saw a drop in the number of service tickets of 34%,” said Johannes Müller, Technical Communication Leader at swissQprint. 

The overall adoption by partners, resellers, and users of the self-service portal was rapid, and technicians were eager to have access to an alternative to a phone-centered help desk. 

 Results from implementing Fluid Topics 

• 34% decrease in support tickets 

 –> Watch the on-demand webinar exploring how by introducing structured content, standardizing the content processes, and changing the way the content was delivered to customers, the company changed the service culture from “call for solution” to “information self-service”

Summary

These three case studies serve as compelling testimonials to the transformative influence of Fluid Topics on content delivery. Whether it be streamlining documentation publishing, keeping up with product release and update, promoting self-service, or revolutionizing training methods, the platform has consistently proven its value across diverse industries.

As technology continues to evolve and information becomes even more critical in the business landscape, companies must adapt to stay ahead. The success stories of Hexagon, Teradata, and swissQprint exemplify how embracing cutting-edge solutions like Fluid Topics can pave the way for growth and competitiveness in today’s digital era.

Want to transform your content experience? Get in touch!