The Ariel website serves as a hub where customers can learn about compressors, order parts, and find support and training. But unlike the typical corporate website, the majority of visitors to the Ariel portals are distributors, vendors, end-users, and others looking for highly technical information. They want to quickly access manuals and find technical documents that help them package, commission, operate, and maintain Ariel compressors safely and effectively. When the time came to replace the existing website content management system (CMS), Ariel looked for an option that would deliver strong support for technical documentation.
After evaluating five leading CMS options, Ariel chose Adobe Experience Manager as the backbone for its website due to its integrated functionality that allows Ariel to create and deliver content faster. Experience Manager Guides underpins the technical documentation efforts by serving as a component content management system (CCMS) with native support for DITA content. It works seamlessly with Experience Manager Sites, a powerful and easy-to-use CMS, to publish content to the website. Experience Manager Assets adds digital asset management capabilities.
“Experience Manager was the only platform we found that allows us to publish DITA documents directly to the website,” says Egle. “With Experience Manager Guides, we can push out accurate technical information faster — which benefits both us and our customers.”
Automating HTML and PDF generation
The technical documentation team supports roughly 20 solutions with multiple types of technical documentation, including product manuals, customer bulletins, product information, ISO documentation, packager standards, and application manuals. The Adobe CCMS now serves as a single source of truth for all technical information. Technical writers author information as DITA content. The topics can be reused across multiple documents, keeping installation instructions, safety statements, and other content standard across documents. Taking advantage of reusable topics saves time spent duplicating work, and when it is time to make content updates, writers only need to make the changes once.
