FRx Software Corporation Microsoft Compliance Revision

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The Customer

FRx Software Corporation, a part of Microsoft® Business Solutions, provides financial reporting, budgeting, and analysis solutions to customers worldwide. FRx Software products have an interface to the general ledgers and ERP systems developed by more than 30 of the leading mid-market General Ledger and ERP solution providers. Microsoft® Business Solutions for Analytics- FRx ® is the financial reporting and analysis application used to design presentation-quality reports drawing financial data directly from the client general ledger. Microsoft® Business Solutions for Analytics- Forecaster ® is the Web-based budgeting and planning solution from FRx Software. FRx Forecaster and FRx® Financial Reporter are fully integrated to share data via the FRx® ExpressLink interface.

The Challenge

Recently acquired by Microsoft Corporation, FRx Software became a part of Microsoft Business Solutions division. FRx needed their documentation and online Help to have a fresh look, and be fully compliant with Microsoft Technical Publishing standards. FRx Software asked Intelligo to develop a new set of documentation templates in Adobe ® FrameMaker ® that met the following requirements:

		A template design to serve the dual-purpose of providing formats and styles for both printable and online documentation, and allow single sourcing of the documentation and online help.
		A template design to comply with current FRx Software corporate documentation standards as defined in the corporate identity guidelines.

The Solution

Intelligo consultants worked closely with FRx Software documentation management, marketing, and representatives from development and technical support groups to identify key documentation requirements. The new documentation templates met the following requirements and satisfied decision makers and subject matter experts at all levels of FRx Software management:

		Cleanly structured hierarchy of headings, bulleted lists, and numbered lists, free of ambiguities or duplication of styles.
		Custom color definitions, compliant with the FRx Software corporate identity guidelines.
		Template layouts for front-matter such as title and legal notice pages, table of contents, and preface; template layouts for numbered chapters and lettered appendices; glossary layout; two-column index layout; and a section divider template to facilitate grouping and isolation of closely related information sections in printed documentation.
		Two page size formats, 7x9-inch for on-demand printed documentation and 8.5x11-inch for online PDF format.
		Single-source capability to output FrameMaker files to WebWorks online help authoring software.

Intelligo also worked with FRx to create an internal style guide, apply the Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications to documentation, and to incorporate Microsoft HTML Help standards for online help.

Intelligo's Value-Add

FRx and Intelligo worked together to develop a single-sourcing methodology to reduce the costs associated for updating Report Designer software documentation and translation efforts and to minimize document maintenance. The single sourcing also increased information accuracy and consistency across all printed and online materials. This strategy also reduced documentation costs for FRx by at least 50 percent for upcoming software releases, and produced significant savings in translation.

The templates and help systems represented a concerted, year-long FRx-Intelligo effort to develop and implement company documentation standards, create uniformity in end-user documentation with a standard template, and adapt Microsoft Corporate standards, the parent company of FRx.

Intelligo provided expertise for every facet of template design and development by accomplishing the following:

		Developed two customized sets of FrameMaker templates for 7x9 and 8.5x11-inch formats, compliant with corporate style guidelines.
		Developed a comprehensive FRx Software corporate style guide, adapted from Microsoft Technical Publishing standards.
		Developed a Microsoft Word template with page layouts and paragraph styles that mimic the FrameMaker templates. This template allowed other FRx employees to use Microsoft Word for creating documents with the standardized "look and feel" of the FrameMaker documents, and to apply the documentation design standards to shorter documents, such as release notes and installation guides.

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