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Team collaboration just got easier. MadCap Central is the only cloud-based solution that allows your team to easily track and manage tasks, manage workflows, schedule and automate processes, and extend your authoring capabilities with integrated subject matter expert (SME) contribution and review.
What’s New – April, 2019
A Secure Cloud-based Environment Integrated with
Powerful Desktop-based Authoring and Publishing
By combining MadCap Flare with MadCap Central’s cloud-based collaboration, publishing, and content management functionality, you can improve content quality, gain greater insight into tasks and production schedules, work collaboratively with teams, host content and automate processes.
Combining the power of desktop authoring with cloud-based collaboration, publishing, and content management.
A Modern UI Makes Organizing Your Cloud-based Content Easy and Personalized
MadCap Central’s user interface makes it easy to organize your content, projects, teams and users. A customizable dashboard makes working personalized and efficient.
Customizable Dashboard
Customize your dashboard with widgets for quick and easy access to calendars, build history, cloud storage usage, project properties and more.
Projects
Project Management, Source Control, Hosting and Publishing
The Projects page displays a grid of all the MadCap Flare projects that have been uploaded to your MadCap Central license. Use the Projects section to schedule and manage builds, create and manage project lifecycle checklists, set builds to a “Live” status to make content viewable by the public, and much more.
Tasks
Task Management and Project Checklists
The Tasks page lets you keep track of work that needs to be completed and visualize the workflow. When creating a task, you can add detailed information, including priority, due dates, estimated hours and more.
The Project Checklists feature allows you to create unique, customizable project milestones that can be tracked individually or as a team. Set the appropriate status on each item as you work, and keep track of the percentage of completion as you progress with a visual chart.
Teams
Team Communication and User Management
The Teams page can be used to organize users into groups. This provides a convenient way to associate people with projects and quickly communicate with a specific set of users. The Users page lets you manage and view all of the users on a license key.
Reviews
Contribution and Review for Subject Matter Experts
The Reviews page allows you to view and manage files that have been flagged for review. Other review tasks, such as choosing and sending files for review, are done from Flare.
There are two kinds of users in MadCap Central — Authors and Subject Matter Experts. A Subject Matter Expert (or any other non-Flare user) can contribute and create new content using the lightweight cloud-based editor, as well as review existing content with track changes and annotations. The SME will only see the components of the user interface relevant for reviews. Authors on the other hand, can also be sent content for review, and can function as either the original author or a SME during the review process.
One Centralized Location to Manage Projects and Content
With the extensive project and content management capabilities, you can upload projects, import projects from other users, assign users to specific projects, set project statuses, receive notifications for activities and much more, all from a single location.
MadCap Central Allows Users To:
Upload MadCap Flare Projects
Keep track of your MadCap Flare projects, all within MadCap Central. Uploading (or binding) your projects makes it easy to host your outputs directly through MadCap Central. You no longer need to rely on FTP publishing or get your IT department involved to publish live websites.
Additionally, when you upload your Flare project, a copy is stored in the cloud. Users with access to your account can keep local and cloud versions of the project, synchronizing changes with integrated source control.
Import Flare Projects
Need a copy of a Flare project that’s been uploaded by another user? With MadCap Central, you can download Flare projects that have been uploaded to the cloud.
Assign Users to Projects
Manage your resources and let your team know which projects to work on and prioritize next. Individual users or teams can be assigned to any project, or multiple projects at once.
Set and Manage Status of Projects
Manage the status of the project from beginning to end. When you upload a project, it is automatically set to “Activated”. You can set a project to “Archive” if you want to keep a copy of the files in the cloud, but you no longer need the output. You may set a project to “Lock” when you no longer want to make changes, but you need to retain the output.
Monitor Projects with the Project Dashboard
When you open the Projects page in MadCap Central, you have three different ways to view projects:
- Project Dashboard: As the default view for a project, the Project Dashboard can be populated with widgets, giving you additional information on the project.
- Build Management: This view lets you generate, open, and manage outputs from a target.
- Repository: Helpful for troubleshooting files, the Repository view lets you see the read-only view of all the files in your project.
Get Notifications on Projects
MadCap Central can alert you when certain activities take place. In user settings, you can select how you receive notifications, either through the Notification Center, via email, or Slack.
Get notified on when:
- Builds are started, stopped, and completed
- Users are added and removed from a project
- Teams are edited
- Comments are left on tasks
- Projects are deleted
- And much more
Cloud-based Editor for Streamlined Contribution
and Review with MadCap Flare
Allow anyone in your organization to contribute and review Flare content using MadCap Central’s cloud-based editor. Subject matter experts, authors and other non-Flare users can easily create and review content using an integrated cloud-based workflow.
Benefits of this Review Workflow Include:
Cloud-based Editor
Subject matter experts do not need to download and install any software. The contribution and review workflow is simple, completely integrated and takes place in the cloud.
Concurrent Multi-User Authoring and Review
Multiple SMEs, authors and non-Flare users can contribute, make changes and add comments to the same topic or snippet simultaneously.
Easy-to-Use Interface
The lightweight editor offers a streamlined interface, and SMEs only see options and features that are relevant to the contribution and review process.
Team Collaboration
Collaborate with SMEs (and other authors) by viewing and working with the same Flare content and projects concurrently.
Select your topics for review in the Review Wizard before selecting
which team members are required to review the content.
Secure Hosting and Simplified Publishing in the Cloud
MadCap Central leverages the security, power, and flexibility of the cloud to mitigate or eliminate many of the technical hurdles faced by both content creators and information technology professionals.
Secure Hosting
Security and privacy is our top priority at MadCap Software. In choosing a partner, we focused on selecting a security center that understands the importance of privacy and complies with the highest international and industry-specific compliance standards and uptime guarantees. We are pleased to be partnering with Microsoft® Azure to ensure your content and data is safe
and secure.
Microsoft® Azure regularly undergoes rigorous third-party audits to ensure and verify the highest level of security controls. For more information, visit the Microsoft Trust Center here.
You can download our MadCap Central Security Whitepaper here.
Data Centers and Disaster Recovery
The infrastructure for MadCap Central is hosted by Microsoft® Azure, leveraging secured data centers worldwide. These Azure data centers are ISO27001 certified. For more information, visit the Microsoft Azure global infrastructure site here
Web Server Hosting and Management
Every MadCap Central subscription includes access to our highly scalable cloud-based build server.
PDF Summary Guide
MadCap Software Product Overview
Cutting-edge software solutions designed to support the entire content development lifecycle, backed by world-class service and technical support.
Download The PDF
Track and Manage Tasks With Multiple Views
MadCap Central’s task management features are an efficient way to manage the workflow of your MadCap Flare projects. Plan, track, and visualize what needs to be completed with tasks, all managed within a single, cloud-based platform.
Create and Customize Tasks
Create tasks to help organize and streamline your workload. When you create a task in MadCap Central, you have the ability to configure the task with fields such as description, priority level, due dates, associated Flare project, assigned user, and more.
Track Progress with Milestones
Follow tasks from start to finish by moving them along three different milestones: To Do, In Progress, and Completed.
Easily Collaborate with Users
Start a discussion with assigned users by adding comments to the specific task. In addition, you can also attach files to a task, making it easier to collaborate with others.
Filter Tasks by Project, Date, User, and More
Finding specific tasks is simple with MadCap Central. You can use the search field to locate the task, or use specific filters to sort by project, date, user, and priority.
View Upcoming Tasks at a Glance
Manage the workflow of your entire project with the Calendar view, where you can see when tasks begin and end in relation to one another.
Automate, Manage and Publish Builds Quickly and Easily
Managing builds in MadCap Central is easy. Schedule builds, set builds to “Live” for easy publishing, and view the build log for details such as warnings or errors during builds. Plus, MadCap Central hosts your build output for you, meaning you no longer need to rely on other departments (such as IT) to assist with the publishing process.
Schedule and Automate Builds
Generating outputs for a project can easily be done within MadCap Central. You can either build targets manually, or schedule targets to be generated at a later date.
Fix and Troubleshoot with the Build Log
Anytime you build a target, a build log is automatically created. The build log lets you see detailed information on any warning or errors that may have occurred while building the project.
Set Builds to “Live” or “Keep”
Once your target is successfully generated, you can mark the build as “Live” or “Keep”. Setting a build as “Live” means the output can be viewed by the public. Or mark a build as “Keep”, in case you need to roll back to a previous version of the output.
Set Vanity URL Paths for Outputs
Vanity URLs consist of your license (i.e., company) name, followed by “mcoutput.com”. When a build is set to “Live”, the build is hosted by MadCap Central and given a URL path destination, based on your vanity URL (e.g., https://fictionsoft.mcoutput.com/vanity/Default.htm).
Receive Notifications on Builds
Need notifications on when a build has started or stopped? Or when a build is completed or set as “Live”? Get notifications through the Notification Center, or sent directly by email or Slack.
Assign User Permissions to Control Access & Maintain Content Quality
MadCap Central offers a robust set of user management options, giving administrators the ability to define roles and specify what type of tasks a user can perform.
Manage Users From a Single Page
The Users page lets you manage and view all users on a license key. From the Users page, you can view a user’s details, status, and recent activity.
Easily Invite Users
Users can be invited one at a time or added in bulk. Or if you have multiple users you need to add to a license, they can quickly be added by uploading a CSV file.
Set Custom Permissions for Users
Users can be granted a variety of permissions in MadCap Central. Permissions can be set globally for all projects or separately for individual projects. Decide which users have the ability to create tasks, upload new projects, run and schedule builds, and more.
Assign Users to Teams and Projects
Administrators can assign users to teams, making it easier to send messages to groups of people and manage activity. In addition, administrators can also associate users directly to projects, streamlining communication among team members.
Get Notified on Important Changes
Want to get notified when changes are made to a project? Users have the option to receive notifications for certain events, such as completed builds, newly created tasks and checklists, deleted users, and more.
Organize and Communicate with Teams
to Manage Projects Efficiently
Teams can be used to organize users into specific groups. Associate users with projects and quickly communicate with a specific set of users using the Message Center.
The Message Center is an area where users can chat within Central. Chats can be with other individuals or entire teams.
Manage Teams from a Single Page
With the Teams page in MadCap Central, you have the ability to view all teams at a glance. The easy-to-access dashboard provides a convenient way to associate people with projects and lets you view the users and projects associated with each team.
Create Teams Based on Projects
Teams can be easily created within the MadCap Central dashboard. After the team is created, you can easily view the members and projects that are associated with the team. To connect a team and its members to an uploaded Flare project, simply link the team and the project within the dashboard.
Easily Communicate with Teams
Need to send an important update to an entire team? Save time with the Message Center and send messages to members of a team, which makes it easy to communicate and collaborate with others.
Effortlessly Edit and Delete Teams
Team profiles can be easily edited by users with permissions, such as the team name or description. Projects and/or users associated with the team can also be added or removed.
Scalable for Any Size Organization
A single user or a team of hundreds, MadCap Central was built for scalability. Pricing is simple and adding additional storage is easy.
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