HMI Software / On-line Help / Product Manuals

C

Thread Starter

Crystal Majercik

To List,

To Ship or Not To Ship hard-copy manuals with Motion Controllers. What does
the End User want?

We are considering enhancing HMI help files to include on-line help manuals
using RoboHelp for Microsoft HTML. The tutorial presents a rather slick
package. But, the issues are:

1. Is RoboHelp (product of e-Help Corporation) an Industry Standard?
2. Do users want the ability to print entire manuals from within the software? Or, is interactive help enough?
3. What are other's using to create help files for their HMI?
4. What do end users in the industrial automation arena really want to see and use?

Your recommendations are appreciated :)

Crystal
Integrated Industrial Technologies
 
J

Joe Jansen/ENGR/HQ/KEMET/US

Never heard of robo-help.

If you are asking my opinion, which I have lot's of, I would like to have all the setup and troubleshooting info in a hardcopy format. That way when the system is down, or in a nasty environment, I can get it working.

Operational stuff, programming, etc is good for online help because it is
usually only of interest when the system has been brought at least up to a
powered-on level.

--Joe Jansen

 
B
>Crystal Majercik wrote:
>To List,
>
>To Ship or Not To Ship hard-copy manuals with Motion Controllers. What does
>the End User want?


Probably both.

>3. What are other's using to create help files for their HMI?

I use both Print Shop and Powerpoint to write manuals. I use screen shots and then annotate them. I have investigated using Adobe Acrobat, but I have not made the investment. HTML help files look nice also. Acrobat might be the best solution.

Bill
 
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Curt Wuollet

I agree with Ed's points and would add a few more. Don't use Word documents that can only be read where you have a full-blown, completely up to date, high resolution office type computer with a full compliment of Monopolyware. Here if the real world, we don't have the same stuff your secretary or technical writer does. Also bear in mind that some people don't have any Monopolyware at all. PDF
is somewhat portable but requires serious resources. Postscript is more portable, at least if you can't read it you can print it. Ascii text is best, you might not want to publish in it, but it costs very little to have a worst case version available for that old DOS PC out on the floor. I routinely blacklist companies that won't communicate in portable formats why should I keep a Windows machine running and current simply to have the privilege of buying from them? Same goes for e-mail, I reject any MS format mail as a virus. The moral is don't make any assumptions when in the real world your products will be used in non-office conditions. A cruddy old laptop without a CDROM running DOS is a lot more prevelant than you think. For me to access the setup you talk about would take days, I'd be pissed by then.

Regards

cww
 
K
1. Robohelp is a standard Product.
2. Definitely user should have the privilege to print whole manual.
3. We are creating help file using Robohelp.
4. Basically end users in the Industrial automation field would like to have the hard copy of the entire manual while trouble shooting. Some times they find the on manuals as handy.

BR / Kiran

 
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Ranjan Acharya

We are moving to on-line help, shying away from "printed" manuals. Our users appreciate this effort. Even with good document control, older versions inevitably end up being used, sometimes with less-than-favourable results. The on-line manuals are always up-to-date. I cannot comment on the "RoboHelp" tool. We have not used that tool. Compiled HTML in one form or another does appear to be the way to go. The same can be said for application software such as Microsoft Office and so on. It is a shame that all the PLC vendors, SCADA vendors and HMI vendors have not moved all their help files over from PDF / doc / hlp to CHML.

The interactive help is popular because you can search and so on and find anything right away. Recalcitrant users can easily be persuaded to use the product with a few case studies.

Also, no one ever reads the manuals, so what is the point (time, money, the environment ...) of printing them.

We just completed a large automation job and used on-line help instead of printed manuals for the end-users. The customer was very receptive.

Based on my own "anecdotal" experience, I think that you are heading in the right direction.

Also, one DVD or CD-ROM is easier to handle than a monster printed manual, and copies can easily be made too.
 
E
I want full manuals and other information available as .pdf files on the web site. This way I can get updated manuals when needed, and I can read the manual before I decide to buy the product.

I want an _up to date_ manual in the box, on paper, so I can make notes and go through the manual when I'm not at the PC. A disk of the manuals in .pdf format is a second, not as good, choice.

I don't want to see the manuals inside any other program or help system, as I have yet to see one that let me read and print just the section of the
manual I want. A real manual with a good index works fine for me. When I find all the things that don't work like the book says I want a place to make notes. 8^)

When you do the .pdf manuals, please enable the security settings to allow cut and paste from them. This saves a huge amount of time when I need to make up manuals for the operators and/or maintenance techs.

Don't forget that many computers in the industrial environment don't have a web browser on them.

Ed Mulligan

Speaking for me, not for Starbucks. . .
 
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Bob Peterson

> I want full manuals and other information available as .pdf files on the
web
> site. This way I can get updated manuals when needed, and I can read the
> manual before I decide to buy the product.
>

AMEN!!!!

> I want an _up to date_ manual in the box, on paper, so I can make notes and
> go through the manual when I'm not at the PC. A disk of the manuals in
.pdf
> format is a second, not as good, choice.


Sometimes this is useful, but I also cannot cart around 50 pounds of manuals with me when I go out on site, so I prefer electronic ones, cause a CDROM is lightweight enough to bring whatever I need with me.

> I don't want to see the manuals inside any other program or help system, as
> I have yet to see one that let me read and print just the section of the
> manual I want. A real manual with a good index works fine for me. When I
> find all the things that don't work like the book says I want a place to
> make notes. 8^)

I prefer to see them as something seperate, but because of security issues at some places, you are forced to allow them to be called from inside an OI program or something. I am not seriously offended by this, but it can be a bit of a nuisance. I much prefer an electronically indexed manual to a paper manual. One of my whines about a fair number of older manuals is that they are scanned into PDF form rather than being imported as text so you cannot search. But even so its better than carting around 50 pounds of paper manuals. And if you are really concerned about making notes, buy the full Acrobat program and add notes as you wish.


> When you do the .pdf manuals, please enable the security settings to allow
> cut and paste from them. This saves a huge amount of time when I need to
> make up manuals for the operators and/or maintenance techs.

A major bugaboo of mine with a certain PLC manufacturer. Its like I am gonna steal their words or something. It would be really nice to be able to excerpt a chapter from a manual now and then thats of particular benefit to an operator w/o having to take the 20 other chapters that are useless. For instance, it would be really nice to be able to excerpt the fairly well
written chapter on how the built in alarming functions work in certain OIs and import it into the controls documents. The operators need to be able to have this information, but since its secured, you cannot use it inside the document where it belongs. Making a statement that the operator must refer to such and such a document is not a good substitute for just having it there
where it really belongs.

> Don't forget that many computers in the industrial environment don't have a
> web browser on them.

Many do not have acrobat reader installed either, but most seem to have both, although in many cases they are not easy to get to. I am not a huge fan of compiled html. I see no real benefit to using it over PDF format, and PDF documents seem to print out better. The compiled html stuff I have seen does not seem to print out and actually look like a real manual as easily as a PDF document does. But really, it is a matter of personal preference, and I rarely print out electronic manuals, much like I almost never print out PLC pograms anymore. I have learned to just live with the limitations the pc screen gives you and work from there. I see no real compelling reason to kill a few trees just to get a printout no one will ever look at. I
personally think that it is important to have a PLC programming package available for any serious sized installation. The idea that you should have
to go find a laptop, see if you can find the latest version of the program, find all the cables and stuff and then finally get attached only to realize that the documentation files are not upto date is stupid. It should be online, and accessable directly, and the version that is there is the lastest version.

I realize this flies in the face of some people's security restrictions, but to heck with them. The weenies that come up with these restrictions are not the ones that get yelled at cause it takes 45 minutes to add 1 second to a time delay. Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that most (but admittedly not all) security restrictions are of little real value except to feed the ego of the people creating them, and generally they are not enforced anyway, as a large number of times the passwords are written in a drawer, on the wall, or on the back of the mouse pad anyway because no one can remember the dozens (in some cases hundreds) of different passwords that are scattered through a typical plant.

Bob Peterson
 
M

Mark Blunier

> We are moving to on-line help, shying away from "printed"
> manuals. Our users appreciate this effort.

I wouldn't appreciate it. On-line help is nice, but I want a manual.

> Also, no one ever reads the manuals, so what is the point
> (time, money, the
> environment ...) of printing them.

Some of us do read the manuals. While its not true for a lot of people, there are still a few people around that like to understand what we are doing.

Mark
Any opinions expressed in this message are not necessarily those of the
company.
 
D

DAVCO Automation

I agree whole heartedly, manuals are great and this is more than an opinion.

I do Strategic Provider work for Rockwell and they also abandoned manuals in
the name of being more Microsoft like. I commented that Microsoft can get
away with this and the reason why lies in a stroll through a Barnes and
Noble Isle or a search on Amazon, there are a thousand guys writing Excel
books, not so for Rslogix 5.

The reasoning I use is this......If I am hunting, for a particular topic,
online help works but if I am just learning a product and do not know all of
the features it posesses, then I need (and here is the key all you marketing
types out there) WANT a book so that at my pace and where I want (not in
front of the thing I spend far to much time at).

The proof to me is when I install the latestg software on a users machine
for them, the frist words I am always asked are "Where is the
manual".....remember who the customers are...

The counter arguement always is about one thing only COST, they claim it is
what users want but give them the choice, manual or online and 80% + of my
users immediatelly answer manual. I agree that an online doc is much easier
and CHEAPER to maintain, charge me for it then......

Dave
 
D

DAVCO Automation

In the meantime the rest of us will be servicing our CUSTOMERS and what they want instead of what I want. They pay me to do what they want and if they ask me to express my opinion or for my expertese, then I do.

Dave
 
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