Embedded Help in your Web App using Grazr
Thanks to TechCrunch, I just stumbled across Grazr, another entrant in the “drop the r” Web 2.0 product category. It’s an HTML widget (my newest obsession) that displays XML data in a hierarchical format. It reminds me of my gopher days…
Here’s a very simple Grazer example. I created an XML file (OPML format), pointed Grazr at it, and generated the HTML to embed it on this post. You can nest folders, list out multiple text entries, and put in URL lnks, links to RSS, OPML, etc.
As you can tell by the Grazr content in my example, I’m thinking about creating a Help resource for my Salesforce.com customers. As Mark showed a while back using Meebo widgets, Salesforce.com lets you easily drop components like this into their app. So I can create a help file in OPML, and put my Grazr help component in the left nav area of the Home Page.
Voila, simple help now in Salesforce.com. And it’s easily updated because the data lives in an external XML file, which I could generate from a database of some sort as necessary. You could even put the help data in Salesforce objects and use the API to generate the XML file…
I’ve been struggling with a good way to hand off simple documentation to my customers. The Salesforce help is very deep on general issues, but I want to document the business processes that I’m supporting. Grazr gives me a simple display of my structured help, and lets me put it where people will use it, right in the Salesforce UI.
Just yesterday I wrote about how I think these kinds of UI widgets are going to explode and redefine what it means to create web applications. Salesforce.com is way ahead of the curve on letting us crank on their UI, remaking it as we see fit, for our specific needs. I hope the ability to insert S-Controls in dashboards that they’ve been talking about for the Winter ‘07 release is a sign that they’ll be opening up the plugability of their UI even more.
September 19th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
Hi Steve,
I’ve also been thinking a lot about how to deliver just-in-time documentation to clients. I favor a minimalist, simple to maintain solution that can change as their business processes evolve. With a platform like sfdc, that’s going to happen more quickly than otherwise.
My thinking was headed toward embedding a hosted wiki in a web tab. Have you seen any instances of this? The real trick here would be to integrate the permissioning structure of the wiki with that of sfdc, so that you could restrict edit priviledges if needed.
The other thing I just checked out was QuickSuccess, an overlay on top of sfdc that basically lets you script common tasks while providing guidance each step of the way. I don’t know how customizable it is quite yet, but it looks very intriguing.
Check out the demo (complete with Mr. Professional Voice-Over Guy..) at http://www.crsol.com/quicksuccess/qs-demo.html.
September 19th, 2006 at 10:01 pm
I was intrigued when I saw QuickSuccess on the Appexchange, but it appears you can’t create your own help–you only get to use theirs. Since my business practices are different from theirs, their help is of marginal value, I think.
Now if they gave me an interface for creating my own context-sensitive help, and have it overlay on Salesforce, that would be a killer app.
As far as a custom tab goes, I think that’s a good option. I could be a wiki or any CMS really.
September 20th, 2006 at 5:09 pm
I was wondering about that myself. I made the assumption that the help was customizable, otherwise it seems the tool would have a very, very narrow niche!
I’ve got a call scheduled with one of the company founders, so I’ll let you know what I find out.