Edward stumbled into the world of software development for technical publishing through the backdoor. From production editor to Technical Lead for Doc Authoring, answering “how does it work” led him further down the technical rabbit hole into the world of structured authoring, XML, DITA, and the like. Now posing as a software developer by day, he continues to try to solve the challenges of information management and content delivery without losing his ability to speak in plain English all the while maintaining a questionably healthy cycling habit. He has presented at XML Prague and Balisage and holds a Master’s in Information Management from the University of Maryland.

Do You Need a CCMS to Deliver Enterprise Content With Quality and Velocity?

Co-presented with: Nick Green

At SAS, a team of globally distributed content creators use a custom Docs-like-Code publishing system to manage the documentation for around 250 software products. The system delivers around 1000 English “docsets” in multiple formats monthly—100s of which are translated into 20+ languages.

Unlike a traditional CCMS, the SAS CI/CD publishing system leverages GitHub and CVS for versioning and maintaining structured XML and other source files, while still affording content creators extensive modularity and enabling reuse.

Organically evolving for the past twenty years, SAS documentation infrastructure represents an alternative to the typical DITA-based CCMS solution. This case study explores the features, feasibility, strengths, and weaknesses of a content management strategy built on software development CI/CD tooling and practices. Does leveraging open-source software development tooling to build and maintain documentation stack up against the CCMS? Is it right for you?

In this session, attendees will learn:

• Maybe you don’t need a CCMS. There is an alternative to the component content management system that could be leveraged for an agile, low-cost content management strategy.
  
• Your content could be “code.” Software engineers have built robust systems for high-velocity development. Those tools could be your pathway to lightning-fast content delivery.
  
• Nothing comes for free. Rolling your own content publishing pipeline is flexible and can reach enterprise-scale, but there are tradeoffs.