Notably, the Exasol team doesn’t limit micro content to text. They have started adding short videos into the micro content as well. The team embeds a YouTube no-cookie link into a MadCap Flare-based topic or piece of micro content and then wraps it in a <div> tag to ensure that the link does not break the formatting.
“It takes a little manual effort to make embedded YouTube links comply with EU laws, but with Flare we are able to create richer micro content that includes both text and videos,” Nico said.
Customized Navigation Based on a User’s Exasol Database Deployment
The Exasol SaaS functionality is the same for all users. By contrast, Exasol Database customers are using one of three supported product versions, and they are deploying the software with one of four supported infrastructure options: Amazon® Web Services® (AWS®), Microsoft® Azure®, Google® Cloud Platform® (GCP®), and on-premises.
For this reason, when customers go to the Exasol Database documentation, they see a dropdown menu to choose which product version they are using and four buttons for selecting the infrastructure they run on. Based on their selections, the documentation will present information specific to the user’s software version and infrastructure.
“One of Exasol's key value propositions is our flexibility, so we're available on all the big three cloud platforms: Google Cloud®, AWS® and Azure®, as well as an on-premises. This has impacted how we've structured our documentation,” Nico explained. “In line with how the same core software has different administration for each platform, we have a single Flare project and use snippets and conditions to display the right content based on the customer’s choice.”
Uniquely, Exasol’s documentation portal goes beyond version selection and directs users to the correct topics based on their choices. For example, if a customer selects AWS® as the cloud platform, this user will see the homepage updated to show AWS®-related topics because of the MadCap Flare conditions applied. Then, this choice is remembered anytime the user comes back to the documentation portal from the same computer. So, the home page will once again show AWS®-related topics, and searches will automatically provide responses relevant to AWS® deployments. The Exasol team created this functionality by combining MadCap Flare conditions with logic built in JavaScript.
“We created the customized views of our documentation by combining MadCap Flare conditions with logic we built in JavaScript,” Nico explained. “Without the open, industry-standard architecture of Flare, adding custom JavaScript to create individualized experiences for our customers simply would not have been possible. The flexibility to go through the Flare UI or add custom JavaScript opens up the possibilities to do really cool things.”