SDL LiveContent DITA

SDL LiveContent was selected from more than 800 products after comprehensive assessment by the KMWorld judging panel. All products selected demonstrate clearly identifiable technology breakthroughs that serve the vendors’ full spectrum of constituencies, especially their customers.

SDL LiveContent for DITA represents a new, dynamic publishing paradigm - one that surpasses the older, static approach to publishing. SDL LiveContent's dynamic approach enables you to deliver content targeted to the customers who need it, in the format they want, and for the situation in which they will use it.

The dynamic quality of LiveContent is why we call it "live." It carries the full richness of the mark-up of your XML content, right up to the moment the content is requested - and only then does it pull from the repository the content for the specific product requested. It delivers that content in the language preferred by the user, and is tailored to their unique skill level.

SDL LiveContent is designed to fully mine your information value, and deliver that value to your customers. Here's how:

• Living XML Content. SDL LiveContent's light-weight, high-performance, native XML database keeps your technical content in XML form until the instant it is accessed, when it is then formatted, filtered, and delivered to the person requesting it. This means that the information your users and clients receive is always relevant to the task at hand. The path from request to delivery is short, cost-effective and fully automated.
• Automatic Incremental Updates. SDL LiveContent ensures content is current , complete, and above all, accurate. It makes changes available as they occur. Only the changed topics are affected and the update packets can be pushed to the user if he or she is connected to the Web, or pulled when the user returns to the network after a period of being away.
• Ability to Support any XML DTD or Schema. Because SDL LiveContent can work equally well with any XML DTD or Schema, you are not bound to a particular content form or standard, but can even support multiple XML structures simultaneously within the same publication, integrating different schemas into your information products.
• Create Improved Information Products. SDL LiveContent can give you insight into what topics are most used and those that are seldom used or never accessed. It can also provide a feedback loop by which users can report errors, identify difficult instructions, suggest other topics, or propose different approaches that would make their jobs easier. The absence of such a feedback loop has been a challenge to publishers of product documentation for decades.
• A Platform Built on Standards. SDL LiveContent uses the family of XML technologies and universally available Web tools. Because LiveContent's technology is mainstream, you'll never have difficulty finding capable and affordable staff to support your publishing workflow.

...With more than a quarter-century's commitment to client success, SDL Structured Content Technologies enables you to keep pace with your business' rapidly advancing delivery and intelligent content needs.

Want to learn more? Download the LiveContent for DITA product brief here.

SDL LiveContent 5.1

The new release of SDL LiveContent 5.1 addresses the growing need to engage large numbers of customers and partners with intelligent content.

The new release includes enhanced commenting for more granular “roundtripping” of comments between content consumers and content developers and offers support for the new DITA 1.2 standard. With SDL Trisoft, SDL LiveContent also offers single sign-on with LDAP and Active Directory.

• Integrate animations, simulations, and video to provide the rich multimedia experience your customers expect
• Search inside the structure of the content with personalized usage recall to reduce look-up times and produce faster resolutions
• Support emerging devices like smartphones and tablets out of the box in addition to traditional web channels
• Track content usage through analytics and provide reports on what users are looking for and which topics are most helpful, based on feedback
• Incrementally update content to allow fast and automated distribution of only changed information
• Eliminate content inconsistency across technical documentation and supporting knowledgebase articles
• Access open APIs for easy integration with your existing infrastructure such as parts ordering, after-market sales, or other company systems
  

Business Benefits

• Deliver unprecedented customer engagement by providing intelligent content tailored for every customer
• Increase customer loyalty and repeat buying by answering their questions quickly and correctly
• Drive down call center support costs by increasing customer self-service
• Improve content through social interactions between content creators and content consumers
• Increase revenue by integrating technical product content with traditional persuasive materials to educate prospective buyers and upsell existing customers
  

The following table contrasts the new SDL LiveContent approach to dynamic and interactive content with the more traditional approach to content that is one dimensional. This flattened content has led to many of the challenges that organizations face today.

"Live" Content	Dead or Flattened Content
Dynamic presentation via web browser	PDF, HTML
On-the-fly filtering presents users with applicable content from a single source of content	Contents set at delivery time. Content contains all product configurations or multiple deliverables are created
Application presents applicable content based on user configurations	User must find applicable content
Incremental updates for individual topics, any time, with tracking	Full content set updated at scheduled times
Automatic audit trails track user interaction, feedback forms collect info	Little or no feedback from users
Content can be bookmarked and annotated, and these are maintained during incremental updates	No ability for users to annotate content and maintain annotations