HelpServer Assist

This announcement was prepared by 4.ST. The 4.ST developers will be exhibiting at the WritersUA Conference in March.

What is HelpServer Assist?

HelpServer Assist guides users as they do their work on web applications. As the user moves through a web application, HelpServer Assist displays vital information in a separate browser window. This window is a central location for help and support services, for troubleshooting and tutorials.

In addition, as the mouse moves over important fields in the target application, contextual information appears automatically as a tooltip over the field. This kind of contextual information can also be displayed at the bottom of the Assist window.

Figure 1: HelpServer Assist with tooltips

In the Assist window the user can navigate to any resource needed to perform the task at hand: libraries, FAQs, Q&As, indices, procedures, policies, search pages - whatever. If the user needs them, they are there without having to be hunted for!

Further more the information is shown in the user's preferred language and bits and pieces of the content can be conditionally displayed in function of his profile.

How do you build and maintain a HelpServer Assist help and support center?

You don't have to be a technical wizard!

Just drag your web application files and drop them on HelpServer's Workbench and the Workbench will assist you in defining your application, the pages, and the forms.

The information about your application's GUI is stored as a blueprint in HelpServer's repository and it is used to detect changes afterwards.

Figure 2: Defining your web application in the HelpServer Workbench

Next you indicate the items for which help is required and then you can start entering help information and import existing training and reference material.

All the information that is vital to running your business can be added: texts, images, sound, videos, slides, pdf files, Word documents - whatever. HelpServer's Workbench will tie together all your content even if it needs to be available in several languages.

All the content is stored in a repository. HelpServer Assist accesses the content from this repository in real time over the internet. You won't need to extract and distribute platform dependent files.

Why would you need HelpServer Assist?

Business software is moving to the Web. Companies are investing millions in implementing new enterprise-wide applications. But users and employees don't always get all the information they need when they need it.

Enter HelpServer Assist, a new HelpServer feature that provides accurate and mission-critical information to users to help them make decisions that affect the profitability of your business.

More rapid adoption of new applications, lower training costs, fewer user errors, and increasing productivity are the key benefits of this new feature.

What are the technical specifications?

• It supports any HTML-based application.
• It is a cross-browser/cross-platform solution.
• No downloads to the desktop are required.

Where can you find more information?

HelpServer Assist is a new feature of the HelpServer platform, a solution to organize all help and documentation throughout an enterprise.

You can read all about it at http://www.4st.com/pro_helpserver.html .

And you can join our product demo at the WritersUA conference on Tuesday, March 27th at 4:15 pm.

What service and support can you expect?

HelpServer is a product of 4.ST and at 4.ST, we stress service. A highly qualified team of professionals is at your disposal for service and support.

The following services are included in the product license fee:

• Assistance when you install the product.
• Recommendations about technical requirements.
• Guidance during the initial phase in a help or documentation project.
• Adaptations of functions to fit your needs.
• Correction of software bugs.

We also offer the following fee-based services:

• efining your help and documentation needs.
• Analyzing and designing help and documentation projects.
• Developing company-specific help and documentation functionality.