Choice system

[rawky1976]

Hello, I'm sorry if this has been covered; I've had a search but can't find anything.

Is it possible to create a help system like a call centre would use. A search is performed on the callers question and then questions are presented. Dependent on whether the caller answers Yes or No the next question would be auto-generated, resulting in a prescribed course of action.

Like Windows where it says 'Do this' and then at the bottom it says: -

This has solved my problem
This hasn't solved my problem
I'd like to try something else

It's also used on the Dell Solution Network, I think it's called a Decision Tree. Can RoboHelp create such systems?

Thank you, Mark

[Captiv8r]

Welcome to our community, Mark

I once was involved with a nightmare system like that. The product name at the time was "Inference". Purportedly, once programmed, the system would allow replacing employees skilled at troubleshooting and problem solving with significantly less expensive employees with no skills. Sort of like programming a cash register with pictures of the food.

The type of system you are talking about is one known as a deductive reasoning type of software. In a perfect world, you would program all possibilities and the most likely answer bubbles up to the top based on excluding all other possibilities.

Personally, I'd just abandon the thought. The company I worked for spent $300,000 on such a system only to abandon it after the initial purchase and weeks of intensive work to try and make only ONE scenario work with it. (There were hundreds, if not thousands of possible scenarios).

Ultimately we discovered that a decently indexed system worked as well as or better than one you are talking about.

I do suppose one could theoretically create such a system using RoboHelp and creating HTML pages that would ultimately form nodes of a decision tree. But there is nothing inside RoboHelp that I can fathom that would facilitate this. *POSSIBLY* the Table of Contents (TOC) editor by playing with TOC nodes.

You might be better off planning by using something like Visio or SmartDraw to map out the flow, then construct HTML pages to match the resulting diagram.

Or (and this goes against my grain a bit) you could use RoboHelp's "on the fly" topic creation ability to work your way through a decision tree structure to create one that way.

Whatever you settle on, I do wish you the best. It's not something approached lightly and certainly isn't for the faint of heart. (IMNSHO of course)

Cheers... Rick

[rawky1976 · Accepted solution]

Cheers Rick, I wasn't planning on replacing any people with computers! Just simple stuff.

I just did a search on Decision Trees and Smart Draw did come up. I'll have to wait till I get back to work to test it as it's Windows only (as is RoboHelp)!

Thanks again, I'm not sure I've got $300,000 of code in me anyway!

[rawky1976]

Sorry Rick, 1st time here, I should have marked YOUR reply as the answer to the topic!!!

Thanks again

[Captiv8r]

Hey again

I found this link that you may find useful. It probably leads to other things too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case-based_reasoning

Cheers... Rick

[rawky1976]

Hey! It shows 'SMART' as used by Compaq (now HP). I have the pleasure of calling HP regularly for work. It's clear they are reading from something scripted. Although it's frustrating whilst they ask you all the obvious stuff that you already did before you called, you do eventually get some good suggestions. We were thinking that the helpdesk could resolve some requests for us with a final outcome being 'log the call to the guys'. Thanks again for the info!

Mark