DITA Metrics

Track and measure productivity and content reuse in your DITA-XML

Samalander DITA Metrics allows you to track and measure writer workload and content reuse while authoring DITA-XML without a Content Management System

Consistent

To be useful, a metrics solution must be stable across different times and systems. What good are metrics if change between the beginning and end of a project? Or after migrating into a new system? Samalander metrics are useful and consistent across all times and contexts.

Relevant

To be useful in a business context, DITA metrics must be relevant in budget discussions, to managers and to writers. Samalander DITA Metrics accurately reflect the work that authors do and measure increases in content reuse and efficiency.

Simple

Samalander DITA Metrics are based on a few key principles that are easy for all parties to understand. They can be explained in a few minutes and the benefits of an accurate, relevant and consistent metrics solution can be made clear to everyone involved in a project.

The DITA Metrics software is distributed as a module for the Samalander Software Center. Free trials of all modules, including DITA Metrics, are available.

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Product Features

  • Scan a Suite:

    Select a DITAMAP to collect metrics on and Samalander DITA Metrics will build a report.

  • Collect Metrics:

    Collect measurements on words, topic, task, concept and reference elements.

  • Measure Published Content:

    Get counts of the words and elements in your publications.

  • Discover Your Content Reuse:

    One of the major advantages of DITA-XML is content reuse. Quickly see how much of your content is being used in multiple locations in your publications.

  • Count Once:

    A single source can be reused in many places. Dita Metrics provides a measure of the amount of unique content you have, ignoring how many times it is reused.

  • Measure Referenced Content:

    Count the number of elements and words that are brought into published content through a content or topic reference.

  • Output to CSV

    Save the metrics to a spreadsheet for further analysis or storage.

Track Your Workload

When content reuse goes up, technical writers have to manage less source documentation. Samalander DITA Metrics accurately measures both content reuse and the total amount of source content, which provides a useful measurement of writer workload.

Know when you are getting more out of your team by using accurate and useful DITA Metrics.

Demonstrate the Value of DITA-XML

Businesses get the most out of DITA-XML when they use its powerful content reuse and single-source publishing features. Accurately measuring progress in these features is critical when working to maximize the ROI of DITA-XML.

How Does it Work?

The basic ideas behind Samalander DITA Metrics are simple. We base our metrics on word count and what appears in published content. An introduction to the concepts can be found on the Concepts Page.

Learn More

Samalander presented the DITA Metrics software at the DITA North America conference in April 2013. A link to the slides can be found here.

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If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact us.

More Information

For information on how to use the DITA Metrics, see the Help documentation.