From manual exports to a build pipeline — how Team Orca wired ClickHelp into their CI process

An application release and configuration automation platform for large, mixed Linux, Unix, and Windows environments

Trifectix, Inc. is a software company based in Austin, Texas. Its product, Orca, gives Application Owners, Developers, Operations, and Release & Configuration Managers a single console for managing application configuration across an entire stack — modeling application relationships, catching configuration drift before it affects deployment or security, rolling out configuration changes in bulk, and producing audit-ready compliance reports.

Gartner named Orca a Cool Vendor in DevOps in 2017, recognizing it among emerging vendors delivering innovative, high-impact technology.

Every operational mode needed its own version of the same documentation set

Orca ships in three different operational modes, and each one comes with its own documentation requirements. Before ClickHelp, that meant every documentation asset needed — the in-product HTML help, the PDF exports, the popup help — had to be duplicated three times over, then again across every release still under support.

• In-product HTML help duplicated per operational mode
• PDF exports maintained separately for each mode
• Popup help kept in sync by hand across all three
• The whole set duplicated again for every release still under support

One project, tagged by output, instead of separate docs per configuration

Team Orca's documentation needs came in three parts: HTML help embedded directly in the product, PDF copies (sometimes the full manual, sometimes just a section) for customers who wanted them, and the same content reused as in-product popup help. Rather than maintaining separate documentation per output type, the team tags help topics with ClickHelp's Output Tags to mark which sections belong to which product configuration.

From manually exporting WebHelp after every build to zero manual steps

Team Orca runs a Continuous Integration environment that triggers builds and installer packaging on a regular schedule. Every package built needs the latest documentation bundled with it. Early on, that meant publishing the right outputs in ClickHelp, exporting to WebHelp, and copying the files into the build server by hand after every build.

That changed once the team started using ClickHelp's REST API. Their product release pipeline now triggers documentation builds directly on the ClickHelp server via API calls — specifying the tag set and output format needed — and drops the results straight into the build tree for packaging. The automation scripts are written in PHP, which let the team fold ClickHelp into infrastructure they already had running.

Developers making documentation edits as part of their regular work, not a separate task

Team Orca singled out ClickHelp's WYSIWYG editor as a big part of why the switch worked. The editor is accurate enough that individual developers and engineers can cut, paste, and format documentation changes themselves, as part of their normal day-to-day work — without needing a dedicated technical writing skill set on the team.

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