Creating a faster, friendlier user guide.
Tata Consultancy Services turns to Adobe RoboHelp to deliver elevated content experiences by creating interactive, engaging user guide for a large telecommunications client.
Established
1968
Employees: A diverse talent base of over 500,000 associates representing 155 nationalities, across 46 countries
www.tcs.com
67%
Reduction in turnaround time for updating user guide
Products:
Objectives
Develop a visually engaging, interactive user guide
Maintain content accuracy by single-source publishing and improved version control
Streamline content authoring and publishing processes
Results
Developed user guide with client branding in a more immersive format in one month
Automated process of updating shared content while adding capability to flag different content versions
Enabled one content author to create content across 20 topics in 10 days; they can publish independently in 10 minutes
Taking clients on a learning journey
When team members from Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) join a client project, they bring a myriad of skills to get projects done on schedule and on budget. TCS provides technical insights, strategy, and multidisciplinary expertise to guide clients toward long-term business success by refining the knowledge, tools, and technology clients have at their disposal. The TCS Experiential Learning Group is a testament to those values, focused on developing the training tools and materials clients need to keep both their internal teams and customers engaged.
The group has been around for 20 years, with about 300 team members now actively supporting almost 70 clients. In that time, its services have evolved from standard texts and classroom-based materials to gamified learning or even augmented reality and virtual reality-based trainings. Team members use skills across instructional design, graphic design, media development, individual tool expertise, and technical writing to guide clients toward innovative ways of sharing information with audiences.
“We’ve seen training tools and methodologies change to match the ways people want to learn,” says Gajendra Palni, Service Offering Owner, Experiential Learning, TCS Interactive, Tata Consultancy Services. “Our most exciting challenge is finding the right resources to make training modules, presentations, and documentation interactive and succinct.”
Members of the Experience Learning Group are well-versed with using Adobe applications to create better outcomes for clients. When Anusha Srinivasan, Assistant Consultant at TCS and member of the Experiential Learning Group, was tasked with developing a user guide for a leading global telecommunications company, she knew Adobe RoboHelp would turn standard documentation into a dynamic learning experience.
“Adobe RoboHelp is a game-changer in accelerating the content publishing process. Content that might’ve taken two days to develop and publish only takes a day. Best of all, we can present that content in exciting, creative ways that call attention to client branding.”
Anusha Srinivasan
Assistant Consultant, Tata Consultancy Services
Building a better user guide
As a renowned telecommunications company invested in expanding its massive 5G network and making its world-class 5G solutions even better for customers, the client often shares large volumes of technically complex information. Originally, the client envisioned the user guide in traditional formats: Working under an initial six-month arrangement, the TCS Experience Learning Group delivered the user guide in PowerPoint.
Once the client realized just how much value TCS offered when developing for web content and technical documentation, it extended the initial six-month arrangement over years. During that time, the client needed to update the user guide to reflect fortnight updates to a cloud platform. But publishing those updates in traditional formats came with challenges.
Without an integrated way of implementing changes, it’s harder for customers to find the most recent, fully up-to-date version of the guide. The volume of these materials also made manual updates in PowerPoint and Word difficult: The user guide alone included over 150 PowerPoint slides.
The TCS Experiential Learning Group is all about finding the right resources to resolve client challenges. Based on previous experience with RoboHelp, Srinivasan suggested that the client use RoboHelp as an authoring tool.
“Adobe RoboHelp is a game-changer in accelerating the content publishing process. Content that might’ve taken two days to develop and publish only takes a day,” says Srinivasan. “Best of all, we can present that content in exciting, creative ways that call attention to client branding.”
She took the initiative to develop a sample of a customized user guide in RoboHelp. In only one month, the team used the Frameless output in RoboHelp to customize the CSS, the publish settings, and stay true to client's branding guidelines. With the client’s branding guidelines as the north star, the team gave the user guide a modern look which offers a content experience that align better with expectations of end-users.
The older version of the user guide featured pages divided into one or two panes. Now, in Adobe RoboHelp, key topics appear on cards—once a user clicks on that card, the user is taken to the actual topic page for a richer, more immersive experience.
Through Adobe RoboHelp, the TCS team performed a large-scale customization across all topics in just four hours. The CSS was only customized for formatting once in its entire lifecycle, saving the time to reformat with every minor or major content update.
A week after seeing the revamped user guide, the client agreed to use Adobe RoboHelp for future user guide updates.
“Adobe RoboHelp gives us the flexibility to turn a standard user guide into a responsive and fully engaging resource for clients to share crucial information.”
Anusha Srinivasan
Assistant Consultant, Tata Consultancy Services
Creating faster, more effective internal processes
With the insight from the TCS Experiential Learning Group, the client saw that using RoboHelp boosted productivity. One technical writer can create content across 20 topics in only 10 days. Traditionally, the client’s content authors had to wait for a developer to help publish their materials. Now, they can do it independently in just 10 minutes.
Content authors can also make far easier updates to the user guide and architecture document to match the speed of the product’s evolution: There was a 67 percent reduction in turnaround time for updating the user guide.
Srinivasan also knew that the single-source authoring capabilities of RoboHelp would help the client resolve potential version control issues by automating updates across common content. If an author needs to call out older versions of specific content, they can use conditional tags to flag them. The client also found great value in the dynamic content filter, since it enables end-users to filter content based on the product version they are working with.
While coaching the client’s operations team, the TCS team explained how RoboHelp could turn the user guide into a living document that makes it easier to do their jobs. Previously, operations team members had to search through an entire PDF or PowerPoint slide deck to find a piece of relevant information, prompting users to hunt through specific pages.
Every topic stored within RoboHelp has its own link the telecommunications client can copy and share, directing users straight to the information they need. The enhanced search functions also cut down on the time operations team members spent circling back to the development team for answers, while reducing the overall volume of help tickets since the guide was so much easier for users across the organization, as well as customers viewing the website, to access and use.
“One of our core values in the TCS Experiential Learning Group is helping our clients work smarter, not harder, in the long term,” says Veenu Dass, Experiential Learning, TCS Interactive, Tata Consultancy Service. “Adobe RoboHelp gives us the flexibility to turn a standard user guide into a responsive and fully engaging resource for clients to share crucial information.”
“We championed Adobe RoboHelp with our client because it’s such an adaptive, creative resource. It can evolve and match the speed and scope of a client’s imagination. We are thrilled to see our client so excited about everything we can do with Adobe RoboHelp.”
Gajendra Palni
Service Offering Owner, Experiential Learning, TCS Interactive, Tata Consultancy Services
Future growth and innovations
As the TCS Experiential Learning Group broadens its relationship with the telecommunications client, RoboHelp is taking center stage on new projects and user guide updates. When the client wanted TCS to serve as its video production partner, TCS used RoboHelp and other tools, including Adobe Captivate Prime, to create an online help system to integrate and embed videos of key, frequently performed activities — such as logging in — under a new user guide section expressly for video tutorials.
TCS is exploring the highly efficient authoring functions in RoboHelp, including a cross-referencing capability that lets users create links to information within a topic or across multiple topics.
The TCS team is also keen to see how the out-of-the-box chatbot integrations available within RoboHelp could empower clients to share information even faster. Clients can prepare instant responses to some of the most common user questions, cutting down on call center inquires and tickets.
“We championed Adobe RoboHelp with our client because it’s such an adaptive, creative resource,” says Palni. “It can evolve and match the speed and scope of a client’s imagination. We are thrilled to see our client so excited about everything we can do with Adobe RoboHelp.”