Rubis Business Solutions Uses ScreenSteps to Help Customers Adopt Google Apps

Shawn Cheatham is the owner of Rubis Business Solutions, a Google Apps reseller and implementation consultant. He regularly has to help users adopt new technologies and new workflows. To help his customers get the most out of their technology, Shawn uses a variety of methods to communicate clearly and efficiently. One thing Shawn does a lot of is knowledge sharing. Until Shawn and his team started using ScreenSteps they didn’t have a cost-effective way of creating the volume of user documentation that their customers really needed. By combining ScreenSteps Desktop for content authoring and Google Sites for content distribution, Shawn has been able to drive down the time and cost of creating user documentation. This saves money for both his customers and himself.

Why did you first look at ScreenSteps?

We had been evaluating how-to products for about 6 months but nothing really suited our needs. I was looking for one solution that could support sharing our content in different places and formats, yet still contain a central management component. When I saw that that ScreenSteps could publish to WordPress, I was intrigued but when I saw it could publish to Google Sites I thought we might have found a match.

What made you decide to use ScreenSteps?

First, the ability to export to Google Sites and second WordPress. After seeing how easy it was to export to our WordPress blog, I tested in Google Sites.

Developing guides in Google Sites isn’t easy. It takes a lot of work. And it isn’t just on the front end with the screen captures. It’s also getting the images into Google Sites, customizing the content, that sort of thing. Ongoing upkeep on any sort of scale is a waste of energy. As a result, we haven’t done a lot of guides and how-to manuals in Google Sites. Also, because Google Apps is being updated so regularly it’s unrealistic to have accurate information. Within 3-9 weeks an entire series of guides can be out of date.

So, posting lessons to Google Sites from ScreenSteps really sounded interesting. I created a lesson, uploaded it and the formatting was perfect. That was a big thing. It was just so much easier than what we were trying to do before.

What other tools do you use to support your customers besides ScreenSteps?

We also use webinars, screen sharing and screencasting software.

How are you using ScreenSteps and Google Sites today?

We do two things. All of our customers get access to our Gone Google training site which has a bunch of manuals and videos. Some of that content has been created by Google and some of it has been created by us.

For our larger customers who want to expand on that training to include other technology products. To do that we use a Google Sites template. It’s basically all of our help material in a template site. We can then copy that template and distribute it to the customer’s Google Sites. We then add to that content based on the needs of the customer and what technology products they are integrating with Google Apps. We will manage probably 70-90% of the help content from our ScreenSteps Desktop software and then publish it into the customer sites as we need to.

How has ScreenSteps changed the way you work?

I was taking screenshots before. But, because of the amount of work I had to do to get the screenshots into a Google Sites page, I was limiting the number of screenshots I was taking. We would have a summary type of image and then a bunch of text content below that described what they needed to do. Now we have images mixed with the content throughout the help file. Our users have said they really prefer having more images for every step and we are able to create the help files much more quickly.

How is ScreenSteps helping you help your customers?

One of the biggest side benefits we have found in using webinars, screen sharing and ScreenSteps is getting people over that adoption hurdle. They are very entrenched in their old way of doing things and in working with desktop software. We can say to them, “We know you are going to have challenges as you make this change, but this is how we are going to support you through those challenges.” And then two weeks later our clients are saying, “Oh this is so much easier. I feel like a weight has been lifted off of my back.” ScreenSteps helps us help our customers make that transition.

It also helps us keep up with change. Google is changing all of the time. Every two weeks there is a Google release. And as soon as people start plugging in other applications there is another UI, there is different functionality, there are different buttons. So we have started supporting not only Google Apps but these third party integrations that our customers want to plug into. With ScreenSteps and Google Sites we can put that help documentation together for them in the same environment they are working in so that they aren’t having to go to 15 different locations for their support information.