Subscriptions in documentation.sas.com

[JuanS_OCS]

I allowed myself to spend a moment in possible improvements for documentation.sas.com. It was not easy, because it is already working really well. In the end, I came up with 3 main ideas which could have most impact in the relationship between SAS expertise/best practices and the SAS users. I will propose them separately, to let them evaluated also separately.

One of them is reflected in: https://communities.sas.com/t5/SASware-Ballot-Ideas/Local-mirror-of-documentation-sas-com/idi-p/6915...

The next one would be the one in the subject: the capability to subscribe to SAS documentation updates.

Prelude: I think the initiative to post hotfixes in the communities is really helpful, and one can subscribe to those, or to updates in the SAS Library, or other communities. I believe those subscriptions have increased exponentially. It definitely helps me to be more productive.

Suggestion: I am not sure of the engine behind documentation.sas.com, and its potential for customization, but I think it would be huge improvement to have similar capabilities. If one has the option to subscribe to individual subscriptions on what is being added, or updated pages/documents.

Cases: 

- What’s New in SAS 9.4 Guide to Software Updates can help to understand the updates and minimize iterations with the Tech Support folks, as it is really clear. It would reduce also all sort of unnecessary surprises.

- Subscriptions could be at a document level, page level, industry, product, etc. Of course, I guess the most easy to implement would be document and page, as the others might need a certain intelligence or map.

- If one is subscribed to a document or a page, it would be useful to receive updates when a page/document is updated, or a related page is added in the scope. Furthermore, as there are documents/pages based on versions, it would be nice if the subscription could apply for an independent version and optionally for all of them.

- Perhaps some would be interested as well in the subscriptions to the Knowledge Base resources, such as Notes and Samples  https://support.sas.com/en/knowledge-base.html They have the potential to trigger wonderful ideas.

Thank you for your attention, looking forward for your thoughts!

@SimonMcGrother , I am not sure if this could be something of your interest. Let me tag you just in case it might be.

In any case I imagine our community managers will address the engagements.

Ps. I will add in a moment the last idea.

[SimonMcGrother]

Thanks @JuanS_OCS 

Apologies for the slow reply - you caught me on vacation...back now and raring to go 😉
This is a great idea. 

We'd have to think about implementation carefully, I can see how document- or product-level wouldn't be too hard to implement. Page-level would need a bit of work (as I'm envisaging a solution, it would yield a lot of false-positives (the document updated, but the specific page didn't would lead to a notification - unless we do some extra work that I cannot think of right this second)). Indutsry-level is probably the furthest away and might need the most thought. Some new metadata would be required, but certain products are so ubiquitous that we'd have to think about whether we want them included or excluded from industry-specific notifications. On the one hand, they could very well matter to someone in that industry, on the other hand, they might generate a lot of noise.

I will say that with the current direction within the company towards the continuous delivery of software, this request might not have a long-term future. We're expecting monthly updates of large swathes of documentation. I am not sure even the most dedicated reader is going to want to wade through all those notifications. Maybe we could restrict the notifications to What's New topics, or the Guide to Software Updates - whilst these might not catch the low-level bug-fix, they would at least give you a heads-up that something significant in that area had been updated. 

Food for thought. I'll keep in touch as I pitch this to our development team.

[SimonMcGrother]

@JuanS_OCS 

I just wanted to update you on this one. We’re still considering the main thrust of your request, which as I mentioned above might pertain more to the SAS9/Viya3 docs than very soon to be launched new SAS Viya docs. As such the request is somewhat less urgent than those things that we need for continuous delivery for SAS Viya.

We do have some tentative ideas about making the doc pages RSS enabled. But as we were talking about this, we did notice this tool (not a SAS recommendation, just something that I noticed) https://www.fivefilters.org/feed-creator/ which basically monitors a page on your behalf and alerts you to updates. We didn't test it, and maybe the way we build SAS Help Center means it wouldn't work, but it might.

Your thoughts did influence a discussion we were having around what’s new/release notes/deployment notes for SAS Viya.

Again, these will be updated often as we deliver continuously, so notifications might be too much. However, we are now considering a page where you can review these assets in a concerted UI. You’ll be able to choose which versions you want to see, which products, which areas of emphasis.

For example, if your interest is in admin docs, and you haven’t checked the docs for 3 months. You’ll be able to set those filters:

“Show me what’s new in admin docs over the given time-range”

You’ll then just see the relevant news, with links into the docs.

I’m hoping that that goes some of the way to meet your request, but be assured that we’re still considering and prioritizing the remainder.

Yours ever

Simon

[JuanS_OCS]

Thank you @SimonMcGrother , and hi again!

No worries for some "delay", I sometimes cannot reply immediately either.

I see as a good idea to place the main focus on the most important topics, such as "what's new", and secondly prioritise the rest of the documentation. However, without forgetting it.

I am aware how CI/CD works with software and documentation and I agree with the concern that it might be too much. Hence the importance of not fully relying on RSS or similar engines. I also must say that some user groups and individuals actually might see benefit of this CI/CD and receive all the updates over the topics the need to. A perfect example are the developers and the deployment specialists, who need to transfer with CI/CD the latest updates on their implementations before delivery, as best practice (I have background on both areas of the business). 

As the documentation at documentation.sas.com is quite custom (and its URLs/URIs), my best guess is that as conclusion, it logically renders as virtually challenging to make engines such as RSS a reliable tool. I assume that even if your teams manage to create all permutations of RSS feeds, it might be a quite challenging UX to implement successfully. 

Having all of this on mind, one could defer that a custom engine might be perhaps the best idea, in order to implement something of this sort and scale, as the underlying structure is customised as well, and quite large. 

This being said, I found your last mention most interesting, and probably aligned to my thoughts. I feel actually very curious about this UI you indicated.

I would like to extend the offer I made within the other idea: I am very willing to participate when you or your teams feel like it 😉

Have a great weekend,

Best, 
Juan

[SimonMcGrother]

Thanks @JuanS_OCS 

I'll keep you posted.

[JuanS_OCS]

Thanks @SimonMcGrother . Will keep an eye