Creating Documentation for New Products/Features - Product Team Workflows

This article outlines the step-by-step process for Product Owners (POs), Product Managers (PMs) and Training and Documentation (T&D) team to draft, review, revise, and publish documentation. Follow these guidelines to streamline documentation drafting and publication processes to support our goal of providing accurate and up-to-date resources to our customers and Cadmium staff.

Step 1: Drafting Documentation and Organizing Documentation Needs in Monday.com

1. PO/PM makes a copy of the Monday.com board: Template: Drafting and Publishing New Documentation
2. Add the following documentation details:

• Category Name
• Article Title
• Author
• Reviewer
• Folder
• Doc Draft Status
• Doc Link

3. PO creates a Word document for each article and adds the shareable document link to the Monday.com board.
4. PO/PM provides access to product to T&D Team for screenshots.
5. Once a document has been drafted and reviewed, PO/PM updates the “Doc Draft Status” column to Ready for Doc Team. 
   • This will send an automated message to the Training and Documentation Team to let them know the document is ready for review.

Step 2: Reviewing and Assigning Documentation

1. A T&D team member assigns themselves by updating the “T&D Team Member” column.
2. The T&D team member creates a Document-type Jira ticket for each article using the following naming convention:

• [PROJECT CODE] Name of Article
• Add the shareable document link to the Jira ticket
• Apply the Jira label: TrainingDocumentationTeam

4. Paste the Jira ticket link into the “Jira Ticket” column on Monday.com.

Step 3: Preparing Articles on the Cadmium Internal Documentation Portal

1. The T&D team member creates the appropriate Category and Folders in the Cadmium Internal Documentation Portal.
   • Add the description: ‼️Only for Cadmium Employees‼️
2. They create and publish blank articles as placeholders. Each article must include the "Cadmium Only - Do Not Distribute" template.
3. Add links from the internal documentation portal to the “INTERNAL ONLY Link” column on Monday.com.
4. Add the category to the correct live documentation portal and copy the links to the “LIVE link” column.
5. Once this is complete, immediately remove the category from the live portal and confirm that links are inactive (“dead”).

Step 4: Publishing and Updating Articles on the Cadmium Internal Documentation Portal

1. The T&D team member adds content to the articles based on document drafts from the PO/PM.
2. Update the “Doc Team Status” column accordingly.
3. Use the Jira ticket to communicate updates, request feedback, and track any necessary revisions.
4. Once the document is published, notify the PO/PM through the Jira ticket with the Internal Only link.
5. Make any final updates based on feedback before marking the document as complete.

Step 5: Publishing Articles on the LIVE Documentation Portal

1. Remove the "Cadmium Only - Do Not Distribute" template from all articles.
2. Update all inter-article hyperlinks to point to the LIVE article links.
3. Assign the appropriate category in the LIVE documentation portal.
4. Remove the category from the internal-only documentation portal.
   1. When categories and folders are moved to the live portal, remember to remove ‼️Only for Cadmium Employees‼️ as the description and add something appropriate to what the content in the category and folder is.
5. If needed, move the articles to the correct folder in the LIVE documentation portal.