Documentation Blueprint

This Wiki is read-only for reference purposes to avoid broken links.

This page aims to generate some discussion on critical initial questions. We realize that these are not the only questions that will arise during the planning phase of this document; however, we feel that this is a good place to start. We have posted some initial responses but look forward to your participation and input.

What? (In one sentence how would you define this document?)

• A complete and robust document for the typical end user of ADempiere. - Joseph.brower

• Some series of contextually written tutorials perhaps? - Red1

Do you mean like scenarios? If we were to give "real world" examples that could really benefit the readers of the documentation. Joseph.brower 22:08, 18 January 2008 (EST)

• A document that also helps making a decision towards Adempiere - Mario Calderon

• A set of documents for different purposes - admins, CEOs, daily Users ... - Georg Schütz

Who? (Who is the primary audience of this document?)

• We think that the ideal audience for this manual is non-technical managers of organizations and companies. - Npsglobal
• I agree. We can't have this manual be written for technical people. The simpler we make things to follow, the better. - Joseph.brower
• Looking at the context of freebies, many will be uncertain starters in a DIY (Do It Yourself) fashion. If such manuals make them feel at home then we have a winner - Red1
• Managers/freelances who are comparing the capabilities of the different ERPs - Mario Calderon
• Consulting and service companies who like to step into the ADempiere market having problems to understand ADempiere in a non-technical way
• Depends on the document - i would like to have several types of them. A "Teaser-Doc" on very high level to attract CEOs. Multiple User Docs for Production, Materials, Financials and a compendium that contains the whole bunch [on 5.732 pages :-)] - Georg Schütz
  • Regarding your "Teaser-Doc" You could being by answering the four questions on this page from a marketing perspective. Npsglobal

Why? (What is the primary purpose of this document?)

• To allow anyone, even people from small shops in non-technical fields to properly and efficiently use ADempiere. Joseph.brower
• ERP is a complex field, there can be a host of whys. Perhaps the most basic is to answer if this ERP is ready for the user or vice versa. Perhaps ther can be a nice laid-out requirements checklist that is progressive. - Red1

How? (How can we most efficiently create this document?)

• We think that there really are five basic steps to creating each section of this document as well as the entire document. See the File:ADempiere Doc Project.pdf that we have posted. - Npsglobal

• My 'HOW?' will be as in what mode can we house or develop our work, using the Wikimedia approach where simple and active peer review can occur. - Red1

What other questions should we be asking as we start?

• Perhaps we should set up a group of target languages so that translation can be done while we're working on the core documents.Joseph.brower
  • If so, then German, Spanish can be the reachable targets. - Red1
  • Regarding the german manual I would like to point you to http://sourceforge.net/forum/message.php?msg_id=4742199
• What about prior good documentation that has been done all this while in the community? Such as by Adaxa http://www.adaxa.com.au/drupal-5.5/node/30 which they are rewriting to ADempiere version now that they have migrated to ADempiere. Perhaps we can apply better standards to them and incorporate their material. - Red1 00:23, 23 July 2008 (EDT)
  • This provides a lot of information, but it isn't laid out in a way that is easy for the readers to learn unless they are familiar with ERP initially. It would be best to refine the information into a well written document. Joseph.brower
• What about the present regime of online Help from the ADempiere application which upon clicking one can browse to the wiki pages here? I find that very ingenious way to have dynamically maintained always in one spot way to get help direct to the user's face. - Red1 20:44, 28 July 2008 (EDT)

That would be a very good way of doing things, but in order to control the quality of the documentation, everyone would need read access, with a limited group having write access. The last thing we need is for a site to get spammed and having everyone reading spammed comments in the help system. Joseph.brower

In this respect, i would invite you to refer to the famous case between Nupedia and Wikipedia. Documentation in our wiki holds up well, albeit even more stricter control than Wikipedia's. - Red1 23:16, 28 July 2008 (EDT)

That is true. The wiki here has held up against spammers and such. Another difficult point that we would run into is naming of everything. We need to have a strict naming convention for pages or it will be much more difficult to tie that directly into adempiere. Joseph.brower