Perforce Software Uses MadCap Software to Drive Down Support Costs and Spur Innovative Approaches to Modern Online Help, Documentation, and Translation

New case study examines how Perforce takes advantage of MadCap Flare and MadCap Lingo to deliver localized modern Help and documentation used by customers and internal support teams

San Diego, CA, USA – December 01, 2020 – MadCap Software, Inc., the leader in multi-channel content authoring, today announced that it has published a new case study with Perforce Software Inc., a global leader in DevOps solutions. The case study examines how multiple product teams across Perforce deliver localized, web-based Help and PDF documentation using MadCap Flare for single-source publishing; MadCap Central for analytics; and MadCap Lingo for translation management.

Whether building, testing, or managing applications, more than 20,000 enterprise customers and 1 million-plus users worldwide rely on Perforce Software Inc. to drive their business-critical initiatives. With its portfolio of scalable DevOps solutions, Perforce helps these organizations to overcome complex product development challenges by improving productivity, visibility, and security throughout the product life cycle.

State-of-the-Art Help and Documentation Drive Down Support Calls

Some of the Perforce solutions long supported by MadCap Flare-based documentation include application lifecycle management (ALM), Agile project management, and version control. In the past, much of the documentation was published as PDFs. Today, the guides are primarily delivered as interactive, modern HTML5-based Help featuring a responsive design that adjusts to users’ screens; easy-to-use side navigation; and an intuitive search experience.

Meanwhile, Perforce’s static code analysis group goes beyond publishing online Help and documentation, which is translated into Japanese. The team also uses MadCap Flare within some of its products to automatically generate diagnostic messages directly from the company’s Helix QAC software if a customers’ code is incorrect or breaks syntax. To view the full case study, visit https://www.madcapsoftware.com/case-study/perforce-uses-madcap-flare/.

Key benefits realized by Perforce include:

• Topic-based authoring, intuitive web-based search, and in-app context-sensitive Help—enabled by MadCap Flare and tuned using insights from MadCap Central analytics—have helped to reduce customer support calls and allowed the support team to address users’ questions faster.
• MadCap Lingo, which is tightly integrated with MadCap Flare, facilitates translation into Japanese. Topic-based authoring, single-source publishing, snippets, variables, and global project linking in MadCap Flare help Perforce’s teams to maximize content reuse, quickly make updates, and keep pace with new product releases. Meanwhile, conditions facilitate compliance with copyright requirements.
• MadCap Flare’s native XML architecture and snippets have enabled Perforce to automate the diagnostic messages that appear in Helix QAC when it identifies errors in users’ software code.
• Micro content functionality in MadCap Flare enabled the ALM team to develop the prototype for a new generation of search in web-based Help, winning an internal 2019 Perforce Kickstart competition.
• The Analyzer functionality built into MadCap Flare checks for broken links, recommends opportunities to add snippets, and offers other reports and suggestions on how Perforce technical writers can improve their documentation.
• MadCap Capture, which is integrated with MadCap Flare, makes it easy for the Perforce team to capture screenshots, edit them, add labels, and make other customizations.

“I’m constantly pushing Flare functionality and scalability, and we now have half a million words and 30,000 snippets that can all be searched,” said Brian Coughlin, a senior technical writer in the Perforce statistic code analysis group. I never could have produced more than half a million words of documentation in time for our product releases without Flare and support from MadCap Software.”

“Our support team members are heavy users of our Flare-based Help, and they direct customers to it as a first resource whenever they can. This has reduced support calls. Both our developers and our support team know our Flare-based Help is a resource they can trust,” said Amy Kearns, a technical writing manager at Perforce. “It’s great the way Flare handles the heavy lifting. It makes my job a lot easier and lets me concentrate on the things that are important in the content.”

“Perforce is the DevOps solution provider of choice for companies worldwide seeking to develop, deliver, and ensure the quality of their software across the application lifecycle,” said Anthony Olivier, MadCap founder and CEO. “We are excited by the innovation of the Perforce team across a range of product groups in giving customers intuitive, easy access to critical product information, which is localized for their needs. Their success in reducing support calls and simplifying customer self-service highlights the power of adopting the advanced content development, management and translation functionality of our software.”

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.

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