Recently I ran into an innovative company called Blue Mango Learning Systems at Dreamforce ’13. They are a small company determined to make documentation considerably easier for B2B companies that need to create help content. Their products include Screensteps, which allows you to create a complete help manual library and Clarify, the scaled down version which simply allows you to create one-off articles that can be shared individually.
The real value of this app is that it removes the need for bunch of tools that would typically be required to get the job done. These include but are not limited to:
- A word processor like MS Word or Google Docs
- A screen capture application (or simply using the Print Screen key for most of us used to that method for years)
- An image editor
- An FTP client
As a Salesforce consultant, here’s why this app is now a big part of my tool chest:
- It’s user friendly. I found it very intuitive to use. Screensteps authoring took a little more getting used to given the hierachy of articles, chapters, manuals and sites but overall it was straight forward to grasp.
- It’s fast. If you’ve ever used other tools to author help documentation, you’ll notice the time savings right away. I thought I had a decent system using Google Docs and with a screen capture tool. It doesn’t hold a candle to Screensteps.
- It creates an online searchable manual. Need to get your articles organized? Screensteps does the job quickly and allows you to build an a help site full of organized yet searchable how-to articles that can be used internally only or used as a public help site . Click here to view a Screensteps sample manual.
- Updates are easy. Simply replace screenshots or text easily with the editor.
- It integrates with popular cloud apps. It has good integration with Salesforce and Desk.com. Read about a recent integration I did with Desk.com here.
- It helps with Salesforce adoption. The beauty of Salesforce is the ability to customize it to match your business. However, documentation to help with training and onboarding is critical for users to have success with the application. Screensteps allows this documentation to be created quickly and published to users right where they need it, in Salesforce.
- It’s multi-user. I can use it to manage help documentation for my clients and optionally empower them to also author and publish content that may be specific to their in house business practices.
- One documentation system to rule them all. For small businesses, it can be used to create internal documentation and customer facing knowledgebase help. No more word or pdf files scattered about. Users know that they can get answers from one system.
Here’s an overview video of Screensteps. They offer a free trial so check it out for yourself.
Need help with your customized documentation in Salesforce? Need help customizing Salesforce in the first place to get the most out of it? We are Salesforce experts and well versed in Screensteps so we can help you with your customized documentation requirements. Want to use Screensteps for other cloud apps how-to’s? Let us show you how. For more information contact Perpetual West at 1 (877) 388-6400.