XML Editor Customization

Why Dakota?

Dakota has an extensive track record of successfully implementing structured authoring and publishing solutions. Backed by years of experience, Dakota has the techniques to fully understand and identify the specific needs of your authoring environment.

Dakota has worked with a variety of XML editing tools, including oXygen XML, XMetaL, Altova XMLSpy, FrameMaker, Arbortext, and more. Through our strategic partnerships, Dakota guarantees that the best solution is implemented to meet the specific needs and requirements of your environment.

XML Editor Customization

Authoring can mean many things, but it is often confused for creating documents, writing technical content, or something as simple as filling out a form. The role of authoring or ownership of the content can span across numerous departments within a company, not to mention across different countries – in different languages.

One day we asked ourselves, why not create a centralized hub where all end-users can author content from the convenience of one application? We have avoided the common pitfalls that undermine other authoring applications to create a fully customizable authoring workflow- complete with search and storage capabilities. From the convenience of one application, content is dynamically delivered to print, web, eBook and mobile.

Customizations to an authoring environment can help improve the efficiency of your system by making repetitive tasks easier to perform or by giving your authors more control over their content. Dakota offers configurations specifically designed for DITA, S1000D, SPL and other selected industry content standards. Alternatively, the XML editing tool can also be configured to use a proprietary DTD or schema. The editing user interface is highly customizable and capable of supporting functional as well as the look and feel requirements of any user community.

Case Study: U.S. Social Security Administration

The U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) is a large government institution of nearly 60,000 employees, with a complex policy and procedure manual. The SSA developed an internal policy management system, PolicyNet, to assist with the updating and publishing of their policy manual.

Originally, the policy and procedure manual was being written and updated through a process that utilized Microsoft Word templates. With nearly 200 subject-matter experts (SMEs) contributing to the manual, the process was slow and unreliable. The SSA was looking for a solution that would dramatically increase the efficiency of the PolicyNet system, without having to train hundreds of non-technical SMEs to use a DITA CCMS.

Dakota assisted with the large-scale implementation of the web-based oXygen XML Editor component. Dakota directly interfaced the tool with the PolicyNet system, and stores all of the XML topics in a central content repository that allows users to easily access documentation on-demand. The project involved a heavy customization of oXygen to replicate the look and feel of Microsoft Word, without sacrificing the authoring and publishing power of a DITA CCMS. With the new PolicyNet tool, SMEs and technical writers can easily collaborate on the creation and updating of policy and procedures within a single document repository.

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