Barbara Dreyer
The way variable functionality is currently designed in Doc360, there must be a one-to-one relationship between the variable name and it’s content (definition).
For example {{variable.Company-Name}} would have a definition such as XYZ Company.
For company, it might work. But this is challenging for brands and product names. A single company might have dozens of both, so it wouldn’t be possible to have generic variable names such as {{variable.Product-Name}} or {{variable.Brand-Name}}.
It’s necessary to create a unique variable for each product and brand. That’s not an easy strategy to implement. What naming convention would work? {{variable.Product-Name1}}, {{variable.Product-Name2}}, {{variable.Product-Name3}}.
How would anyone know which name to choose from the dropdown list in the Doc360 Editor? The variable’s content is not shown in the list.
It would be super helpful if there could be variable categories.
Product Name would be a category. And then you could assign multiple definitions to the category.
Variable Category = Product Name
Variable Definitions: Individual Product Names and this is what would show up in the list when inserting a variable.
For example, our software company has the following products:
1. FedTax 2022
2. FedTax 2023
3. StateTax2022
4. StateTax2023
5. BillPay
6. Easy BillPay
7. Deluxe BillPay
8. Wallet
The variable name has to be generic since it doesn’t change. “Product Name” is the easiest name to assign. Everyone knows what a product name is.
But we would need to come up with generic names for all 8, which would be difficult and confuse our Doc360 team since they would not see any of the definitions in the variable name dropdown list when they want to insert the variable in an article.
If variables had categories, we could have a single category called “Product Name” and then we could assign individual variables to the category. Then the name could show up in the dropdown list, making it easy for the user to know which variable name to insert.
The UI would have to provide a way to choose the variable category – like a checkbox?
Reuse is super important. But it needs to be more robust so we can do more with it. We might want to have hundreds of variables at some point and this would make it easier to organize them.
Another workaround would be to make the variable name editable as well as its definition. Then the variable name could simply be the unique product name, such as “Wallet”. That name would be displayed in the list when inserting the variable into the article.
Also note that longer variable code names take up more space to display in the Doc360 editor. We might be inserting 10+ variables in 2-3 paragraphs. This can look quite cluttered and we are seeing the code, not the output. We have to preview to see the output.
Would be nice to have an option directly in Doc360 editor to see code/output – like a toggle.