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QMEQME 

How does an ISV/OEM, publish help documentation for their Appexchange product?

I am trying to create some help documentation for our product (called PIMS) that is going to be listed on the Appexchange. 

 

As part of PIMS, I am writing up some help documentation.  I would like to put this documentation in a format that a prospect/customer can use after downloading our PIMS application into their org. 

 

I was looking at RoboHelp from Adobe as a tool for publishing the help documenation information for PIMS.

 

It would be great if I was able to understand what kind of software SFDC uses to publish their help documentation.  This way, any existing SFDC user would have a similar UI when they clicked the help button tosearch/navigate/read the help docs. 

 

Does anybody have any advice on the best strategy for publishing help documentation for an ISV/OEM product hosted on the Appexchange?

 

Thanks!!

Best Answer chosen by Admin (Salesforce Developers) 
shillyershillyer

I wouldn't recommend having a separate app for the docs, it should be already included in your main app. I recommend 2 options

 

1. Keep the help docs hosted elsewhere and have your VF pages point to these endpoints.

2. Wait till Summer 10 goes live (http://trust.salesforce.com/trust/status/#maint) and leverage patch push upgrading. Then you can include VF pages in your app that store the docs and you can use push upgrading to update existing pages/code in your app. You will not be able to create new pages through push, but this will allow you to update existing help pages.

 

Hope that helps,

Sati

All Answers

shillyershillyer

There are 3 places to override Help in Salesforce. You can override at the org, object or field level. If you expect your customers will also be using Salesforce, it's best to not override the org help, and just focus on objects/fields. More details here.

 

One thing to note, do you want to store the help in your package or externally? If you store it in the app, then you will need to upgrade the package for any updates to help. Storing the help externally while having the package point to this endpoint gives you more flexibility to update the help.

 

Hope that helps,

Sati

QMEQME

Hi Sati,

 

Thanks for the info.  The object level help was the information I was looking for.

 

On your topic of internal vs. external application help, you do bring up a great point in terms of updating the help.  In a managed package any changes to object level help documentation will require a revision to the VF page for the object being described, and subsequently a new package version will result. 

 

To decouple the help doc  from the managed package, I guess the only way would be to create a pdf help doc and put it on the Appexchange.  Or create one VF page with a link to a pdf help file on our corporate website.  Do you have any other suggestions?

 

Thanks in advance for your help.

shillyershillyer

I wouldn't recommend having a separate app for the docs, it should be already included in your main app. I recommend 2 options

 

1. Keep the help docs hosted elsewhere and have your VF pages point to these endpoints.

2. Wait till Summer 10 goes live (http://trust.salesforce.com/trust/status/#maint) and leverage patch push upgrading. Then you can include VF pages in your app that store the docs and you can use push upgrading to update existing pages/code in your app. You will not be able to create new pages through push, but this will allow you to update existing help pages.

 

Hope that helps,

Sati

This was selected as the best answer