Tracking Help Effectiveness

[Leeckel]

Hi All, Does anyone have any ideas on how to track help effectiveness using RoboHelp? Is there any way to implement a question like "Was this helpful?" to track user responses?  I currently don't have RH 9 and was wondering what other options there are to track whether or not a user finds a topic useful.

[Peter Grainge]

There are threads on the forum about using Google Analytics but I am not sure how you will use that if you don't have RoboHelp to integrate it.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Willam_van_Weelden]

Hi,

The answer hangs on what you mean by 'tracking'.

You can use Google analytics or RoboHelp server to track page visits, frequent search terms, etc.

If you want to gather feedback, then there are several ways in which you can do this, for example:

- A simple link to open an e-mail to allow the reader to give feedbak.

- A 'was this useful' link that sends the results to an e-mail address/database.

A link to open an e-mail is rather simple and you can add that in a matter of minutes. The second option is not supported by default and will require a custom solution for your help. It can be done, but that's a (small?) investment.

Greet,

Willam

[Leeckel]

Hi William,

This is very helpful - thanks. I would really prefer to go with the non-supported option but it sounds like I will need some development effort to do that. Is this something that could be integrated with my current RoboHelp project or when you refer to custom solution are you talking about setting up a completely separate help solution?

As for Google Analytics, is there any documentation available on how this could be implemented?

Regards,

Lisa

[Willam_van_Weelden]

Hi,

The custom option is something external that you can integrate with your current RoboHelp projects. It will require some custom web scripts, but you can integrate it with RoboHelp. This needs some development effort from someone familiar with web programming. I can think of several ways to get this done. We can talk via email about this if you like.

For Google Analytics, start out with this thread: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/441008

If you have any further questions, please post back.

Greet,

Willam

[Jared Hess]

Below is a custom javascript code we came up with allow users to send feedback via email from each htm in a chm file, if anyone is interested.

Here's the HTML that calls the script. I put this in the footer of my htt file:

<p style="text-align: center;"><script

     language="javascript" src="feedback_script.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

     </p>

Here's the javascript code inside of feedback_script.js. This goes in the root directory of the project and is included as a baggage file. Note that was created for use with a chm project. I'm not sure what it'll do to htms outside of that, but you can probably tweak it to fit your needs.

Items in <red> you need to change:

<!-- .js file code starts here-->

//alert("made it into script");

// Get just the page name

var str = location.href;

var arr = str.split("::/");

var htm_page = arr[1];

//

var mailSubject = '<Product Name Here> Documentation Feedback - ' + htm_page;

var mailBody = '[Type your comments here in English] \n\nMy comments apply to this page: ' + location.href;

var mailDisplay = 'Send Feedback on this Topic';

document.write('<a href="#">Back to Top</a> | <a href="mailto:<email address>' + '?subject=' + escape(mailSubject) + '&body=' + escape(mailBody) + '">' + mailDisplay + '</a>');

<!-- .js file code ends here-->

Hope this helps provide some level of feedback.

[Peter Grainge]

OK to add to scripts on my site please? Will give credit. 

[Willam_van_Weelden]

Hi,

A glance tells me that this script will only work in a CHM.

To make it work with other outputs modify the code as follows:

var str = location.href.toString();

//var arr = str.split("::/");

var htm_page = str;

This script basically does the same as the email text link on Peter's site and my email toolbarscripts.

Greet,

Willam

[Jared Hess]

Sure Peter, though I think I got it from someone else and tweaked it, adding my own lines of code for chm use. But the javascript code is pretty generic. I don't think there's anything distinctive in it really.

Willam, it does work on WebHelp output, you just don't get the htm name in the subject. It'll say something like "<Product Name> Documentation Feedback - undefined" unless you make a change similar to what you recommend, but without any changes, it still gives the full htm inside of the body.

[Leeckel]

Hi, Thanks for the reply.  I am using RoboHelp, just not RoboHelp Server.