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REPCO CASE STUDY (DITA)Australian Society for Technical CommunicationConference 2014

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Hello!

Gareth Oakesgoakes@gpsl.co

• Working with software development, authoring, publishing, for 15+ years in A/NZ, UK, USA, Canada, India, etc.

• Chief Solution Architect for GPSL, based in Queensland

GPSL(Global Publishing Solutions)

• Structured content experts with a long history in technical documentation technology: authoring, publishing, CMS

• Consultancy, software development, tools & training, etc.• Arbortext representatives for A/NZ and worldwide• Headquartered in UK, operating worldwide

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Summary

• Between 2011-2012 we worked with Repco to design and implement an automotive content management system (Autopedia www.autopedia.net.au)

• This system manages more than 250GB of content, and provides conversion, authoring, and publishing capabilities

• Content is delivered to consumers via web• Content is stored and managed in DITA format• Content is a blend of own-authored topics and third-party

materials

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Agenda

Repco & Autopedia

Growing Pains

DITA Solution

Q&A

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Repco

• Leading supplier of aftermarket automotive parts in A/NZ• Trade (workshops) and retail customers• Annual revenue exceeds $1B, 5000+ employees, ~400 stores• Founded in Australia in 1922, expanded to NZ in 1981• Acquired by Genuine Parts Company (USA) in April 2013

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Autopedia

• Subscription product for mechanics and workshops• Provides automotive service and diagnostic information, for

the majority of on-road cars in Australia• Hierarchical retrieval of information based on subject area

and vehicle year/make/model/engine• Access to hundreds of thousands of topics

(e.g. diagnostic codes, timing belt replacement procedures, wiring diagrams, component locations, labour times guide)

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Autopedia screenshot

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Autopedia History

• Circa 2010 “Auto-Tech Encyclopedia” was a CD mailout subscription, with a very limited range of content, dated UI• Business was unable to grow

• Manufacturers do not supply manuals or service information to non-brand workshops …

• Therefore content was originated by Repco technical writers, who would often rent and strip a vehicle to document it• This process is slow and expensive• Vehicles becoming more complicated and computerised

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Autopedia Growing Pains

Summary of problems at this point:• Lack of up-to-date content, and poor vehicle coverage• Expensive and slow to maintain and grow the content set• Consumer demand for online product (not CDs)• Business demand for “tiered” product offerings (think

Foxtel subscriptions)

Repco came up with a vision for “Encyclopedia 2.0” (Autopedia), and engaged with GPSL to design the solution …

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SOLUTION

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Autopedia Solution

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Points of interest: content

• All content stored as standalone topics (DITA 1.2)• Each topic is tagged with vehicle applicability (e.g. same

engine may be used across multiple makes/models/years)• Certain “semantics” are added to the content only where

required to support web site display needs• Good balance between simplicity of system versus

redundancy/reuse of content

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Points of interest: conversion

• Repco content (makes up only 1% of content):• Existing content was migrated by GPSL to DITA format• New content is authored by Repco in DITA

• Third-party content (imported from USA):• Arrives monthly, in multiple formats: database, CSV,

custom XML, image files• Converted to DITA format: all relationships resolved and

output as topics, grouped by vehicle applicability• Conversion runs monthly but the update process will only

send new or changed content to the web site

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Points of interest: delivery

• All content is transformed to HTML for delivery• Web server receives content and updates the navigation

structures according to a “vehicle mapping table”• Bulk of contents are images which are hosted on a CDN• Due to size of content, we feed minimised update packages

(rather than complete content replacement packages)• Content can be published/unpublished at the web site level,

the DITA CCMS acts as staging area and master repository

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Tools & Technologies

• Content: DITA 1.2 (with specialization by GPSL)• Authoring: Arbortext Editor• DITA CCMS: Arbortext Content Manager• Publishing: Custom code (Java and XSLT)• Conversion: Custom code (Java and XSLT)• Reporting: Custom code (Java)• Web server: Umbraco (not setup by GPSL)• Hosting: Arbortext by Repco IT

Web server by TelligenceCDN by Rackspace

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Project timeline (approx. 9 months)

• Design sessions with Repco, and specification of system• Planning sessions with web team• Development of custom code, Agile, with Repco involvement• Development of vehicle mapping table (Repco)• Migration of existing content to DITA• Integration of system components and testing• Documentation, training and knowledge transfer• Initial conversion and content upload (200+GB)• Go live!• Ongoing technical support

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Project launch

• Positive response from market – within the first 6 months:• Most existing customers migrated to the new system• More than 1000 customers were signed up

• Revenue goals and ROI were met within the first year• Customers loved the new site design and range of content

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Project footnotes

• DITA worked very well for this system, we used basic topics with a very light layer of specialization for vehicle tagging

• Further specialization may be required in future, there are consumer demands for more dynamic representations

• Sheer size of the content caused many delays, and was not fully taken into account at the start of the project

• Complexity of vehicle classification scheme required a number of design changes during the development phase

• DITA CCMS needed specific configuration and tweaking to handle the large volume of images

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Summary of DITA Benefits

• Single-sourcing• Content reuse• Quality and consistency• Speed and efficiency• Content portability• Enjoys cross-vendor support amongst a wide range of tools

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Summary of DITA Drawbacks

• Requires a level of XML familiarity and knowledge• Requires content to be authored as topics• May require new or different software tools• May turn you into “one of those DITA people” that runs

around recommending it to everyone else

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Questions & Answers

Thank you! Please let me know if you want to hear more detail

Some areas I didn’t cover:• Security• System architecture• Sales & subscriptions• Vehicle mapping table• Performance, reliability, availability• Other?

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Attributes of DITA

• XML format provides “gold plated” solution for single-source content that is also modular, reusable, flexible, portable

• Allows specialization, meaning the basic format is retained with a domain-specific layer of tagging added

• Enjoys cross-vendor support amongst a wide range of tools• DITA content is very flexible, and can be …

• Readily moved between applications, projects, customers, suppliers, etc.

• Tagged with applicability information• Enriched with semantic tagging, allowing for many

interesting uses and opportunities