Suppose you are the administrator of a customer service support solution. Now, you have an expert team but all their efforts are being thwarted due to the lack of comprehensive enterprise software.
What do you need help with? Designing? Publishing? Maintaining your documentation?
Shed all your worries and introduce HAT to your team members! Use a HAT and get ready to fine-tune your content and create the most effective technological documents.
With the help of Help Authoring Tools, companies can effortlessly produce and maintain documentation and that too, for diverse platforms such as PDFs, eBooks, mobile, web, printed documents, etc.
This article takes you on a quick journey of what a HAT is all about and how Docsie has started sounding synonymous with being a HAT.
What is A HAT?
The Help Authoring Tools are the permanent companions for technical writers. This software helps authors design, write, edit and publish their documentation digitally. Authors can also accumulate the software help documentation and convert them into a single database using it in various formats, including PDFs, HTML, XML, etc.
Key features:
1. Discovering errors:
In the case of HATs, code editing and text editing are the principal features. HATs eliminate errors and break down the complex writing process into simple steps. They offer grammar suggestions and create templates which companies can work on to create customised content.
By developing automated language style guides with the help of HATs, companies can develop their brand language. When it comes to code editing, front-end web developers often use such tools. HATs also help brands in maintaining their documentation tone, format and appearance intact.
2. Content management:
A lot of the Help Authoring Tools available in the industry today share a set of similarities with content management systems (CMS). Shadowing the main function of CMS tools and platforms, HATs assist technical writers in managing their content projects, storing and tracking their progression.
The point where a HAT differs from a CMS is that a HAT has every content project linked to a particular set of files, helps, manuals and software explanation guides. While using a HAT, you can prevent data loss and also restore the last saved version of your documents. This is a super benefit of a HAT that lets you access valuable information even after facing an unpredictable technical glitch.
3. File transactions:
When you use HATs, you can easily import and export your files, ensuring seamless file transactions between multiple platforms. The good part is that you do not need to do convert each of your file manually. Through HATs, you can effortlessly work on the same file content and create multiple formats of the same document.
Once you have multiple formats, what happens to your original document? Fear not, for the automatic conversion feature of the HATs lets you preserve the original documentation, keeping the structure and format intact. This decreases the possibility of errors, reducing time and effort. This feature becomes even more significant when content authors need to share their project files with other contributors.
4. Improve content:
When it comes to content creation, nothing can beat the importance of brainstorming to churn out fresh ideas. HATs streamline communication between teams, making remote working easier and ensuring constant collaboration between team members. There are other remarkable features like real-time editing, commenting and version control. Through these features, you can reduce miscommunication amongst your team members, increase productivity and reduce time and effort considerably.
HATs are great tools that keep team members well-knitted in a close group. One of the noteworthy features of HATs includes track changes. This lets users switch between various versions of the same document, creating comprehensive and well-documented content.
5. Publishing and maintenance:
Updating and maintaining documentation regularly is a tiring process. To ease things for its users, a HAT lets writers make changes to the preliminary source file following which updates are made to all the file formats. This ensures that all users remain up to date regarding the changes that are made and can access the final version of the file without any hassle.
In the case of publishing, HATs often provide templates so that technical authors can work on the already existing base-level formatting. The templates also suggest various kinds of visual layouts, making it easier for technical writers to pull videos, motion graphics, videos, etc. from other sources.
How is Docsie A HAT?
With technology and innovation at its core, Docsie is one of the leading Help Authoring Tools that creates new ways for teams to collaborate, create and implement product documentation. Headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, it is a self-writing documentation service that allows companies to write, translate and improve their documentation.
How does it help?
Quick deploy & custom knowledge portal:
While the internal knowledge portal of the platform helps companies to share self-service knowledge with their entire teams, the external customer knowledge bases help in documentation sharing among teams and minimizing customer support workloads.
With the Docsie portal, you can use default designs or implement a custom knowledge base design as per your brand personality, style, and image. The platform also provides a free custom domain as a part of its free plan. It also offers additional domains which users can avail of by subscribing to the paid plans.
Free onboarding, importing, and portal design:
The key elements of customer onboarding documentation are clear instructions, troubleshooting guides, product tours, and FAQs. With Docsie Pilot, companies can ensure free onboarding. Users can import their content from multiple platforms and reap the most value from their created content.
Are you worried about how to train your employees to maximize their productivity? Use Docsie's optional training session so that your staff can work with the software and make the most of the software solution.
Enterprise-grade documentation:
Included with all paid plans, Docsie provides migration support with Docsie Pilot. From importing existing content, entire knowledge portals, knowledge bases, etc., to designing custom portals and training staff - Docsie provides a complete toolbox that helps enterprises grow their functionality.
With simplified documentation workflows, Docsie helps you enhance the effectiveness of all your documentation. Apart from the free custom domain, the platform also provides 3x custom domains for small teams and 10+ custom domains for businesses and organizations.
Custom domain with SSL:
Docsie lets all its users own a custom domain with absolutely no additional cost. Every company with a plan for the platform can own a customized domain where it can host a knowledge site.
By offering its free Startup plan, Docsie encourages all small and medium-sized enterprises to get a custom domain name and use that to increase its visibility and improve its brand image.
Version & language management:
Nowadays, many companies are using AI language translation. All thanks to the massive transformation that AI has witnessed in the last couple of years. If your company also works with a lot of content and struggles with copy-pasting and duplicating issues, choose Docsie as your professional partner. Integrate languages and versions and consolidate them with Docsie, translating them into one particular URL. What's the benefit? You will no longer need to bang your head on the wall regarding being on top in SEO ranking.
Final Thoughts
So, that was a sneak peek into the world of HAT. What's next? Select a reliable and efficient Help Authoring Tool. Make sure that it understands your business requirements, your company objectives and provides all the features of an effective HAT within your budget. Before finalising any HAT, ensure that it offers comprehensive customer support along with undoubtedly efficiency and scalability.
Choose Docsie as your professional partner and witness your business achieving new heights of excellence. Providing a unified documentation experience to its global clients, Docsie provides the solutions to all your documentation needs under the same roof.