KnowHow

What's covered? This topic describes a really neat low cost program that your readers can use with your help, your company's software or any other application they use. They'll love it and you don't have to do anything. If that sounds good, read on.

What is KnowHow?

• Do your users want to make their own notes about how part of your software works or to add to your help?
• Do your customers want to point the users to training materials, intranet information, policy documents covering certain procedures?
• Would your customers think highly of you for making that possible not just with your software but with any software they use?
• Would you like something like that without having to do the work yourself?

Well that is what KnowHow is. A program that gives you all that for a low per user cost. You and your customers can even try it free for 45 days and it is fully functional during that time.

Tell me more

Let me first describe KnowHow in the way it will work if you install it yourself on your PC. KnowHow adds an icon to the system tray. When you get to a screen in any application where you don't know what to do, your normal course of action will be to look at the online help. But what if that does not cover your problem or describes it in an obscure way that will give you a problem next time you look it up? Simple. Click the KnowHow icon and this screen will pop up.

 

You simply enter the text you want to see next time you use this screen. You can also create links to where useful information can be found. I have entered a simple example.

 

The information is linked to the KnowHow database on your PC and uses the title bar of the window. So whenever I have EditPadPro open and that is the only information in the title bar, when I click the KnowHow icon I will instantly see the information above. When I open a saved file in EditPadPro, the title bar changes as below and when I click the KnowHow icon I will get the information specific to that screen.

Looks useful, tell me more.

When you start digging deeper into the functionality and thinking about the possibilities, it becomes more than just "useful". It won't be long before you vote it Cool Tool!

The simple examples above are based on what you as a user might set up. Your customers' system administrators can set up one or more centralised datbases that each user can access. Those databases can be controlled to allow users to add information or to prevent editing. Only one database can be open at any one time though.

Using a central database, your customer can link KnowHow to your application.

• Provided the title bar changes for each form / page in your application, the user can be alerted to the fact that there is information in KnowHow to help them. This would be done where the online help needs something extra for that customer, for example because they adopt a slightly different procedure to that recommended in the online help, because they have produced a company policy document or they have a demo on an intranet.
• My company's application has a static title bar which presented a problem for a moment or two. Then we realised that an easy way around that was for the customer to set up a Word document for each of our screens where they wanted to add information. In KnowHow they then list those Word documents so when a user is in trouble, they open KnowHow to see if there is a related document.
• You will not be able to link KnowHow to specific pages of your online help as that has a static title bar. However, you can use the same solution as in the previous point.

Because KnowHow is a third party tool, you have no involvement in it other than outlining how it works to your customer. Each customer can implement KnowHow in the way that best suits them. Some will want to stop users editing the central database, others will want to encourage users to add notes to help others.

Cost

See the KnowHow website at www.affixion.com. There are discounts on a sliding scale.

Considerations

Anything I didn't like? Only one thing. If you are in a screen in an application and you call up KnowHow, the chances are you will read it and then click back into the screen being used. KnowHow goes to the back until you click on it again. Sometimes though you will not click on it again until you have moved onto another screen in the application. Because you did not close KnowHow it will still have the information you previously accessed. You then have to close KnowHow and click the system tray icon again to get the relevant information. In the scheme of things it is not a major issue but one that will irritate some users until they get used to it. Affixion, the producers of KnowHow are aware of this and have explained to me the issues involved. One consideration is that a user will want to write a procedure that necessitates going through several screens and will not want KnowHow to refresh. That is a very valid point and I see the difficult design issue involved. I think that explaining the writing of a multi step procedure should overcome the objection if it is raised. It certainly would not stop me using it!

KnowHow requires .NET to be installed. That has never given me a problem with various programs that have that requirement but you need to be aware that some companies will not allow .NET to be installed. You will need to check that out with your customers.

Summary

Whilst the Custom Links described elsewhere on this site are nice in that they are linked to specific help topics, there is a LOT more work involved in setting those up and whilst they are not overly difficult to set up, they can be fiddly for someone not technical. KnowHow on the other hand is simple to set up and use.

Because the KnowHow data is outside your program and help, when you issue a new version you don't have to worry about users losing the data provided you don't change the window title bar!

Finally, what a great company to deal with! They are responsive to your requirements and very keen to assist.

 

Date	Changes to this page
19 May 2007	New topic