San Diego, CA, May 06, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MadCap Software, Inc., the leader in multi-channel content authoring, today announced that the May 2020 Release of the MadCap Authoring and Management System (AMS) is now available. Featuring MadCap Flare and MadCap Central, the newest MadCap AMS version introduces the ability to host and publish secure private, password-protected output; enhancements to MadCap Software’s industry-first, patent-pending Micro Content Editor; and the MadCap Connect Plug-in for ServiceNow®, among others. With MadCap AMS, users have more comprehensive functionality than ever for creating, reviewing, analyzing and delivering modern self-support websites, training content, technical documentation, and knowledge management centers.
MadCap AMS combines MadCap Flare, MadCap Central, and a range of plug-ins for popular service and support solutions to provide a complete solution for the entire content development lifecycle. MadCap Flare offers cutting-edge technical authoring and publishing capabilities with advanced features to maximize authoring efficiency, content reuse, and multi-channel publishing. MadCap Central is the first cloud-based platform for content and project management designed specifically for the documentation industry. As a result, content developers can leverage one integrated system to streamline their content delivery—from authoring, publishing and translation to cloud-based project, content and workflow management, to gathering valuable business intelligence and user statistics on how end users interact with the content.
“More than 20,000 organizations around the globe rely on our solutions to deliver content that supports core functions within their business, from training to customer service, employee education, and documentation. Our latest release of MadCap AMS extends our commitment to empowering these customers to create a superior user experience,” said Anthony Olivier, MadCap founder and CEO. “Now with MadCap AMS, authors can publish secure, password-protected web content; enable fast access to information via our micro content technology; and publish their content to a broader range of popular help desk and support solutions—ensuring users can get timely content where and how they need it.
Secure, Private Access to Web-based Documentation
The need to share private, protected content with employees, partners and customers is greater than ever as companies increasingly rely on digital business models and remotely based workers. Now with the May 2020 Release, organizations can use MadCap Central to host and publish secure, private output that requires a user to log in with an email address and password credentials. Without the credentials, users cannot access the site, making this option ideal for restricting the availability of documentation while providing easy, modern web access.
Along with password protection, MadCap Central has added a new “Viewer” user type to allow individuals who do not have “Author” or “Subject Matter Expert” (SME) user roles to gain access to MadCap Central and restricted outputs. With MadCap Central, Authors can designate an unlimited number of users as Viewers, who then can view published, password-protected content via the web.
“Providing secure password-protected access for viewers and SMEs to our Flare-generated content hosted on MadCap Central has been a game changer for us,” said Patrick Fueldner, technical lead – Technology Learning Center at Nestlé Information Technology. “We are now more efficient and self-reliant as a team, eliminating dependencies on our internal IT departments.”
Enhanced Patent-Pending Micro Content Editor
In 2019, MadCap Flare introduced the industry’s first built-in Micro Content Editor, giving authors the ability to create new micro content or tag existing content as micro content that can be easily digested by chatbots and other machine-learning and artificial intelligence (AI) applications.
The May 2020 Release adds two new capabilities to the patent-pending Micro Content Editor. First, authors can now associate context-sensitive Help (CSH) identifiers (IDs) with micro content phrases to facilitate searches in field-level or embedded Help. As a result, when users click a particular part of the user interface (UI), for example a question mark icon, the micro content phrase pertaining to it appears in the UI.
Additionally, new micro content conditions allow authors to show or hide certain content depending on where it is being viewed. By applying micro content conditions, authors can, for example, show an image in a topic but hide that image within micro content search results. Micro content conditions also make it possible to apply conditions to micro content phrases. This enables authors to separate the phrases to be included in different outputs, as well as edit properties for microcontent phrases.
“MadCap Software continues to innovate in 2020 with features that you simply cannot find on any other platform, such as micro content authoring, that give us the ability to provide amazing Help user experiences for our customers,“ said Paul Pehrson, senior information developer at Venafi. “My company is in the process of converting all in-app Help to micro content using the new context-sensitive IDs. It’s amazing!”
"The improvements to micro content authoring in MadCap Flare 2020, particularly the ability to use CSH IDs and edit phrase properties, opens entirely new avenues to provide Flare-generated Help content in product user interfaces," said Daniel Ferguson, founder and president of Smart Output.
ServiceNow Knowledgebase Integration
ServiceNow® is one of the most widely adopted software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions for technical management support, IT service management, and help desk support. With the new MadCap Connect Plug-in for ServiceNow, authors can now easily import documentation created with MadCap Flare into their ServiceNow knowledge bases. This enhances the ability of a knowledge base to support any service desk tickets, and it ensures the delivery of timely, consistent information to customers and the IT professionals supporting them.
MadCap Connect Plug-in for ServiceNow complements other plug-ins available with MadCap AMS, including MadCap Connect Plug-in for Zendesk and MadCap Connect Plug-in for Salesforce.
Enhanced Productivity in MadCap Flare
MadCap Flare is used by thousands of companies worldwide to create and publish their technical documentation, user guides, instruction manuals, online Help, and support websites to any number of print, web, desktop and mobile formats in users’ languages of choice. The newest version of MadCap Flare enhances productivity with the addition of:
- Support for Code Snippets. Authors no longer have to manually input code into software documentation. Instead, authors can easily create and insert code snippets into their documentation in dozens of languages, such as JavaScript and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Syntax highlighting makes it easy for users to view the code snippets.
- Enhanced Find and Replace. New capabilities include the ability to find specific elements in content, such as changing all H3 tags to H2, or replacing the "Mobile" conditional attribute with "Tablet," among others.
- Ability to Collapse and Expand Tags. When working in the XML Editor, authors can now collapse or expand tags (i.e., chunks of content) to make it easier to view and find content in long topics.
“A built-in code snippet editor, syntax highlighting, and a copy button—brilliant,” said Shahrooz Kamali, senior manager, technical documentation at Plex Systems. “And the fact that it works great in print outputs is a game changer for MadCap Flare 2020.”
Easier Management with MadCap Central
The MadCap Central platform for content and project management works in concert with MadCap Flare to provide a comprehensive, agile, highly extensible, and cost-effective alternative to enterprise content management (ECM) and component content management system (CCMS) solutions. With the May 2020 Release, MadCap Central adds several new capabilities to facilitate management.
- Site Management for Multiple Domains. Authors can now manage sites hosted on MadCap Central—including multiple domains, vanity URLs, and site “Live” status, among others—from a single location.
- Site Themes. Authors can now control how different user interface elements look for each site—such as the login, invite, and 404 message, to name a few—by creating, editing and duplicating site themes for UI elements and branding these with their own company style guidelines.
- Redesigned Task Log. The Tasks dialog has been completely redesigned with three tabs: Details, Discussion, and Attachments, which let users quickly find important information related to tasks. Additionally, reorganized fields are easier to scan and edit.
- Settings and Profile Enhancements. Several updates have been made to the dialogs to make the User and License Management settings easier to use and more efficient. The Team Profile dialog has also been updated.
Availability and Pricing
The MadCap Flare and MadCap Central May 2020 Releases, as well as the MadCap Connect Plug-in for ServiceNow are available today as part of the MadCap Authoring and Management System. Per-user subscription pricing for MadCap AMS is $299 user per month. The subscription includes 30 GB of storage per company account (with additional storage available), free product upgrades and updates, Platinum-level maintenance and support with unlimited email and telephone support, a knowledge base, and forum access. Standalone pricing for MadCap Flare, MadCap Central, and the MadCap Connect Plug-in for ServiceNow are also available. Visit MadCap Software at https://www.madcapsoftware.com, or contact MadCap Software at sales@madcapsoftware.com or +1 (858) 320-0387 to learn more.
About MadCap Software
MadCap Software, Inc. is a trusted resource for the thousands of companies around the globe that rely on its solutions for single-source multi-channel authoring and publishing, multimedia, and translation management. Whether delivering technical, policy, medical, marketing, business, or human resources content, MadCap’s products are used to create corporate intranets, Help systems, policy and procedure manuals, video tutorials, knowledge bases, eBooks, user guides, and more to any format, including high-end print, online, desktop or mobile. MadCap services include product training, consulting services, translation and localization, and an advanced developer certification program. Headquartered in La Jolla, California, MadCap Software is home to some of the most experienced software architects and product experts in the content development industry. Learn more about MadCap Software at www.madcapsoftware.com.
MadCap Software, the MadCap Software logo, MadCap Authoring and Management System, MadCap Central, and MadCap Flare, are trademarks or registered trademarks of MadCap Software, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other marks are the properties of their respective owners.