Help requirements

803 Determine requirements for help system has the following suggestions for providing help to our users:

• Wiki functionality seems good -- users can add their own content.

• Comments are important.

• Link to ArcGIS Enterprise help.

Help can take many forms and can be confused with training. Help should be short, concise, and cover the most common questions and problems that users may have.

User content

ArcGIS Enterprise is itself a content management system where users can create their own content. User-generated help would require oversight to ensure correctness, and for that reason alone it isn't recommended at this time.

User feedback

User feedback is a good idea. A feedback form or generic mailbox referred on the front page of the portal would be recommended.

Help

Referring to the ESRI online help is the most efficient way to provide comprehensive help on ArcGIS enterprise functionality to our users. Initial topics should cover

• Requesting an account

• Finding content

Research

TC Survey

A survey of other TC applications yields the following results:

I had access to 15 applications, and treated EIS and related (CSMD) as one. A few listed applications were dead links. I included content labelled both Help and User Guide.

Feedback from the Web Services Group

I met with Scott Smith, Senior Communications Advisor from the Web Services Group, on January 14, 2019. Scott's main concern was the duplication of help content that exists for other applications (eg. how to use GCKey). He followed up with an email which states:

As the EGIS application is currently planned for TC employees only, please proceed as you have planned with the Online help pages. Please note that an accessibility review should be requested before the application goes live. As complex maps are exempted from being accessible, we still should ensure the rest of the interface is accessible.

Technologies

ArcGIS Enterprise

Create a content item, or a site, to contain our help content.

PRO:

• No additional software installation required

• User management baked in

CON:

• version control

Static HTML

Create a separate subfolder on IIS, or an Azure Web App, to host our help content.

PRO:

• Version control

CON:

• Separate product to maintain

Wiki/CMS installation

Install a product, either on our IIS machines or as an Azure Web App, to store our help content.

PRO:

• The most functionality and flexibility

CON

• Difficult to integrate users with ArcGIS Enterprise

• Separate product to maintain (WCAG, etc).