Tips on Project Documentation 1

[RohanP]

I have made a Exports Management System in Visual Basic 6 And Sql Server 7 as Back End. The project is ready & already implimented. Now I have to document the project, i.e. making a user manual, Software Documentation. I have very less idea about making documentations (never made any) & there is no senior's support. Can Anybody provide me tips on making a documentaion for EMS? I just want info on what will be the topics in it? If u could send me a sample documentation of any other software, it will help me the most.

Help will be appriciated..
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- Regards Rohan (India,Mumbai)

 

[Guest_imported]

Hi Rohan,

Some ideas that you may wish to consider including in your documentation:

a) Describing the various menus that your system has, and what options they contain
b) Operating instructions to use the various options
c) A section on 'How to..' do such and such a tsk "eg: How do I enter an Export Order into the system"; "How do I create a shipping schedule"; "How do I print Shipping documents"
d) maybe some 'FAQ's' Frequently Asked Questions would also be nice

The heart of most user manuals is really step-by-step instructions on how to do a particular task, and the sequence in which these must be done.

Hope this helps. Best of luck. For more help, write to me at Monty_rodrigues@hotmail.com

Regards
Monty

 

[mbuell]

I realize this thread is ancient, but I had to add a comment. The previous comment was based on an end-user software development model. If the actual software developed is, like many "quick" project developments, more fluid in design and operation, exception handling should have some place in the documentation.

This is not just error-trapping, which -if not done- should also be documented. "What do you do when". The type of situation I am thinking of occurs when you have multiple software options.

Eg: Software has Process 1 (P1), Process 2 (P2), and Process 3. Normally your sequence is P1, P2, P3, but maybe something changes, and you need to do P3, P1, P2 - AND this screws up your end result. You can spend a lot of programming time to address this, or you can document how to recover or work-around.


Mark
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