In The Press
Leading Building Research Firm Relies on MadCap Flare
Case Study Reviews How BRE Group Chose MadCap Flare to Streamline Production and Ensure Content Consistency Across Multiple Print Manuals, PDF Files, and Help Websites
La Jolla, CA, USA — August 16, 2016 — MadCap Software, Inc., the leader in multi-channel content authoring and a showcase company for Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Visual Studio, today announced that it has published a new case study on BRE Group. BRE has chosen MadCap Flare in order to streamline the production and ensure consistency across multiple print manuals, PDF files, and Help websites. To view the full case study, visit www.madcapsoftware.com/case-study/bre-uses-madcap-flare/.
For nearly 100 years, BRE has helped government and private sector clients meet the significant environmental, social and economic challenges that clients face in delivering homes, buildings and communities. Over time, BRE has created the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology (BREEAM), which is the world’s longest established method of assessing, rating and certifying the sustainability of buildings. More than 250,000 buildings have been BREEAM-certified, and more than a million are registered for certification in the UK and worldwide.
Evolving Business Drives New Documentation Strategy
To help its independent, licensed assessors and customers understand the BREEAM process, requirements and ratings across different categories of sustainability, BRE delivers a combination of online Help, printed manuals, and PDF guides. For years they were produced using other software. However, BRE found it increasingly difficult to keep track of multiple versions of the same documentation, each with slightly different variations.
The new case study from MadCap Software discusses the factors leading to BRE’s selection of MadCap Flare–along with the fully integrated MadCap Analyzer and MadCap Contributor products–to achieve significant efficiencies in delivering BREEAM documentation and enhance the experience of the customers and assessors using it. Key benefits that BRE has realized include:
- MadCap Flare’s topic-based single-source publishing facilitates content reuse and streamlines delivery documentation of documentation for 10 environmental assessment schemes, including printed manuals, downloadable PDFs, and online Help.
- Snippets and conditional tags in MadCap Flare enable writers to tailor content for manuals serving different audiences.
- Search functionality and glossaries built using MadCap Flare enable users to readily find the information they need whether accessing documentation online or in print.
- Integration of MadCap Flare with Apache Subversion provides version control of content created by teams of writers.
- MadCap Contributor enables other BRE team members to contribute content to Flare without having to worry about the design elements.
- MadCap Analyzer analyzes BRE’s Flare-based content to identify issues–such as missing content, broken hyperlinks, and unused style sheets–and recommend improvements.
The topic-based approach to authoring and content reuse enabled by Flare have allowed us to drastically cut down the time it takes to create manuals and get the information out to our assessors and customers. We’ve been using Flare for a number of years now with much success, and we are excited to move forward with Flare and see what it has to offer for our future.”
Peter Giblin | Business Systems Analyst, BRE
“As a leading authority on sustainable buildings and creator of the BREEAM process, BRE is the go-to resource for understanding how to assess, rate and certify a building’s sustainability,” said Anthony Olivier, MadCap founder and CEO. “We are excited by BRE’s success in using MadCap Flare, Analyzer and Contributor in creating documentation that makes it easy for users to find the information they need in their format of choice, whether in print, PDFs, or interactive online Help.”
About BRE
BRE Group is a world leading building science center and the authority on all aspects of the built environment. The firm generates new knowledge through research that is used to create products, tools and standards that drive positive change across the built environment. BRE enables government and private sector clients to meet the environmental, social and economic challenges they face by delivering higher performing, better quality, safer, more secure and more sustainable products homes, buildings and communities. BRE Group is owned by the BRE Trust, a registered charity, which funds research and education that advances knowledge of the built environment. BRE is committed to building a better world together. To learn more, visit bregroup.com.
About MadCap Software
MadCap Software is a trusted resource for thousands of companies around the globe for single-source, multi-channel authoring and publishing solutions designed to streamline the process of developing and delivering training content, learning and development programs, technical documentation, online Help, knowledge bases, and more. From authoring, publishing and translation, to cloud-based content management system, to contribution and review in the cloud, you can streamline content delivery and manage the entire content development lifecycle with MadCap Software. MadCap Software’s services include product training, consulting services, translation and localization, and an advanced developer certification program. Headquartered in San Diego, California, with offices in Austin, TX, MadCap Software is home to some of the most experienced software architects and product experts in the content development industry.
PR Contact:
Rebecca Hurst
Kinetic.PR for MadCap Software
rebecca@kineticprllc.com
650-679-9282