Quality Assurance Plan Template

This template pack includes a 39-page Quality Assurance Plan Template in MS Word, an Audit checklist and Schedule Forms, and 7 Excel spreadsheets. You can use this template to write your first QA plan. It includes helpful explanatory text that walks you through the process of setting up your first QA project. You can change everything in the document – text, images, and tables. There are no special plug-ins, macros, or installation files. Just download the templates and get started.

Quality Assurance Plan Definition

The Quality Assurance Plan describes the approach to ensuring that software is delivered according to a set of agreed quality guidelines. It ensures that the:

1. Project is managed, developed, and deployed correctly.
2. Deliverables are of acceptable quality before delivered to clients.

In the Quality Milestones chapter, we’ve added a nice Note to the text to display some instructional text.

Here in the Documentation section, you can see how the chapter numbering, fonts, text, and tables are presented.

Why do you need a Quality Assurance Plan?

The Quality Assurance Plan ensures the project provides quality within the allocated resources, schedule, and budget.

How to use the Quality Assurance Plan

• Address specific project processes and deliverables.
• Establish criteria that defines the quality at each checkpoint or deliverable.
• Identify roles and responsibilities for the quality assurance reviewers.
• Define who, where and when quality reviews are performed.
• Apply the Styles, such as those shown in the following screenshots, to ensure a consistent look and feel through-out the document.

Examples of Styles for the Body, Bullet lists, Notes, Table text and headers

Quality Assurance Plan Purpose

Use this Software Quality Assurance Plan to document the process, methods, standards, and procedures for your next software testing project. Use this document as a foundation for managing software quality assurance activities and project activities as documented in the Project Plan.

This Quality Assurance Plan will help you:

• Identify the SQA responsibilities of the project team and the SQA consultants
• Define reviews and audits and how they will be conducted
• List the activities, processes, and work products to be reviewed
• Identify SQA work products

Examples of different notes, message, and warning styles you might want to add to your Quality Plan

Who is this template for?

This template was written for QA Managers, especially those who may be new to this area and are looking for a little direction on how to get started. The forms, checklists, and spreadsheets will also help you get up to speed fast.

Curious?

Learn more about the template pack here.

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In the Madcap world of Flare (yes, I promise never to say that again), you can use stylesheets to give your tech docs a real edge.

For me, styles are one of the hidden secrets in Flare.

So, if you plan to publish your tech docs to PDF, Web, or HTML5, a crash course in CSS styles is maybe what you need.

Interested?

How to Update Style Sheets

The nice thing about Madcap Flare is that you can control the design and layout with style sheets.

The ‘not so nice’ thing is that the UI takes a bit of getting used to. Once you understand how it works, it’ll be fine.

So, how do you start playing around with style sheets and jazzing up your online help?

You can change the colour, fonts, and layout of your online help (and printed documents), use the Stylesheet Editor.

To find this puppy:

1. Go to Content Explorer, Resources, Stylesheets.
2. Right-click or double-click on the style sheet to open the Stylesheet Editor.
3. The Stylesheet Editor has two views:

Simplified

Advanced

4. NB: If the list of styles is overwhelming, click Hide. This tidies things up and makes it easier to use.

Filtering the list of Styles

5. By default, Show all Styles is displayed.
6. If you click on the drop-down menu, you can select the Table, Images, or Headings This helps if you just want to work on a specific style family.

Filtering the Medium

7. Medium means the output type, such as HTML5, PDF or Print.
8. Click on the Medium drop-down menu, and select the output type you want to modify.
9. Pay attention to this as you don’t want to change the wrong CSS settings.

Filtering Properties

10. Click this drop-down menu to view the properties alphabetically, by property groups, or other settings.
11. Advanced v Simplified View
12. Click View Advanced to switch back to the View Simplified.

That’s it for this week.

Let me know if you run into any problems with your stylesheets. Sometimes one small setting can throw everything out of kilter.

Are we friends on Facebook? If not, jump over here.

Conditional text is one of those writing tactics technical writers love to talk about… but never seem to use.

It’s a shame as conditional tagging can save you a lot of time, especially if you have technical documents which share 90% of the content but the other 10% needs to be tweaked for each release.

This is where conditional tagging comes in.

Applying Condition Tags to Online Content

Before we get into it, we should explain a little bit about conditional tags.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you have a core product set, but you modify the product name for different clients. Instead of find/replace by hand, you can apply conditional tags that tell Flare:

• If content contains product name 1, apply tag 1
• If content contains product name 2, apply tag 2
• If content contains product name 3, apply tag 3

Why use Conditional tags?

Madcap Flare definition: A condition tag is a marker that you can apply to different areas of your content so that some sections show up in some of your outputs but not in others. It is just one of the many single-sourcing features that you can use in Madcap Flare.

After you create condition tags, you can apply them to the appropriate content in your project.

For example, you can apply condition tags to:

• Topics
• Images
• Stylesheets
• Skins
• Files
• Paragraphs
• Text within paragraphs
• Table rows and columns
• Table of contents (TOC) entries
• Index keyword markers.

Applying Condition Tags to Online Content

How to apply condition tags to text:

First:

1. In the Primary Target, click Conditional Text.
2. For each tag, click the Include or Exclude check boxes.

Then:

1. Open the content.
2. Select the text to which you want to apply the condition tag.
3. Select the Home ribbon, Attributes section, Conditions.

If you want to apply a condition tag to selected text in a paragraph:

• In the XML Editor, select the text.
• In the Project Organizer, open the Conditional Text folder and expand the condition tag set.
• Drag the condition tag to the selected text in the XML Editor.

4. For each condition tag you want to apply, click the check box next to the tag.
5. Click OK, then Save.

Checking Conditional Text Settings in the Primary Editor

You can tell Madcap Flare to include or exclude content as follows:

1. Open the Primary Target.
2. Click Conditional Text.
3. For each tag, click the Include or Exclude check boxes.

This tells Madcap to apply these settings to the conditional text.

Still doesn’t work?

Check that you have the Show / Hide Conditional Indicator button turned on.

This is on the lower right of the XML Editor. When you turn this on, the conditional tags color code should be displayed.

Now, rebuild the content – does it work?

Hop over to our Facebook Tech Writers page and let us know.

Error messages fall into three categories: informational, warning, or errors.

Error Message: 5 Part Format

Most messages contain these parts:

1. Error number — a one-to-five-digit number that identifies the message. User-defined messages may contain more digits.
2. Description — a Unicode string that contains information about the condition that generated the message.
3. Severity level — a one- or two-digit number that indicates the severity of the error condition.
4. State — a one- to three-digit number with a maximum value that indicates the location in the code that generated the message:
5. Line number — a number in a stored procedure that contains the statement that generated the message.

For example

Error number: 6696

Severity level: 8

State: 2

Line: 5

Description: Invalid object name ‘ObjectMissing’.

That help?

Stay tuned for the next episode!

Ever want to close all the open documents in Madcap Flare except the one you’re working on?

Yes?

If so, here’s how you do it:

1. In Flare, click the Window tab.
2. In the Open Windows section (far left), click the Close All Documents button. This opens a drop-down list.
   
3. Click Close All Documents Except This One.
   

Now, you can get your workspace in order again and decide which files you want open.

You know in Star Trek, when they’re looking into the Captain’s Log? I bet they also had an Error Message log for when things went real bad. You know, like when the Klingons actually won and took over the Enterprise.

Ok, so what’s this got to do with tech docs?

Well, it’s a roundabout way to look at error log messages. They don’t get much love, do they?

If you’re not happy with the quality of your error log messages, see if this helps.

How to Write Error Log Messages

Severity Levels

Error messages fall into the following categories: Error, Warning, or Information.

Define your log messages according to their severity.

• Error – The error is severe. Immediate action should be taken to avoid the loss or corruption of data.
• Warning – Action should be taken at some stage to prevent a severe error occurring in the future.
• Info – An informative message, usually describing server activity. No action is necessary.

Checklist using Cause/Solution Format

Use a cause/solution format when writing the error log messages:

For example:

9968: No port defined for import.

Cause:

The server cannot detect a port.

Solution:

Contact Technical Support.

9969: Bulk import not supported.

Cause:

The server will not accept an import.

Solution:

Contact Technical Support.

9807: Ignoring large value for new_attribute_name.

Cause:

The value of the configuration attribute is invalid.

Solution:

Change the value of the configuration attribute. Refer to the Help files for the acceptable value range.

Checklist for Complex Issues

In some cases, you may want to provide more background details and list the steps to resolve the issue.

6696: Source Not Available

Description:

A Source is not available. Last monitoring query showed source is unavailable.

Cause:

The error occurred because of any of the following reasons:

• Data source is offline
• Data source is not responding
• Network issue

Solution:

Do any of the following:

• Bring source back up
• Fix network issue
• Bring source down.

… stay tuned for next week’s episode!

Making a list, checking it twice… or three times…

How do you test your Troubleshooting Guide after you write it? One way is to create a checklist and test each part individually.

This also helps System Administrators and Software Testers to double-check that all procedures have been completed correctly.

Ok, less talk from me. Let’s take a look.

Use the If/Then Format

Phrase the checklist items using questions, if/then statements, and notes.

For example:

Ask the question:

• Is the core running?
• On Windows, check for the appropriate service name.
• On Linux, check for the appropriate daemon name.

Describe how to verify this is correct, for example,

‘Use the sysmgr command to verify that the System Manager is active.’

Other examples of questions and verification steps:

• Was synchronization started from the console or the command line?
• Are the directory sources currently running? Use the console to verify that modifications synchronized in the expected direction.
• If synchronizing users in one directory source, were these users created in the other directory source using the sync command?

Add Explanatory Notes

In some cases, you need to provide additional information to help the reader understand the underlying problem. For example:

If this was not true, describe what the Sys Admin should do, for example:

Run the sync command whenever there are existing users.

Then add an explanatory note:

Note: If you do not update existing users, accounts information will conflict.

Checklist using If-Then-Verify Procedure

Use if-then-verify checklists to test technical documents.

This works as follows:

1. If an error occurs
2. Then do this to check it.
3. Verify that is works by doing the following

For example:

1. If the user account is not replicated from the Active Directory to the Directory Server,
2. verify that all mandatory attributes in the Directory Server are specified.

Checklist using If But Verify

In this example, one process succeeded, but a second failed.

1. If synchronizing is replicated to the Directory Server and the user creation succeeded,
2. but the account is unusable,
3. verify that the user name is valid.

Provide additional information for the user to resolve the issue:

For example, if you specify an account that exceeds the maximum allowable length, the account will be created but cannot be used until you rename it.

PS – Download your Troubleshooting Guide here.

Snippets? Sounds familiar but what are they?

In the Madcap world of Flare, snippets are content ‘fragments’ you can re-use in different parts of your Madcap Flare projects.

Use snippets to insert:

• Text
• Tables
• Images
• Video

Why Use Snippets

If you find yourself typing the same text over and over, create a snippet instead.

Create the content once instead of re-typing and reformatting it for each topic.

If you want to modify a snippet, change its contents and the text is automatically updated everywhere that the snippet is added.

Snippets are contained in .flsnp files (flare snippets).

You can share them with other authors or use them in other projects.

Default Save location

Snippet are saved in the Content Explorer in the Resources\Snippets folder by default.

However, you can store it anywhere in the Content Explorer that you like.

Creating New Snippets

There are two ways to create a snippet.

• Create Snippets From Existing Content — If you have already created content and want to use it as a snippet, use the Home ribbon or Format menu. Insert the snippet into other topics where you want it to appear.
• Add Snippets — Add a new snippet and insert it into the topics.

To create new snippets from existing content:

1. Open the topic.
2. In the XML Editor highlight the content that you want to turn into a snippet.
3. In the Home ribbon, select Create Snippet.
   
4. In the Snippet File field, type a new name for the snippet. After the snippet is created, you can see it in the Content Explorer.
5. If you want the snippet to replace the highlighted text in the topic, select the Replace Source Content with the New Snippet check box.
6. Click Create. The snippet is surrounded by brackets (if markers are turned on).
7. Save.

Inserting Snippets

After you’ve created a snippet, you can insert it into a topic.

You can do this by using the ribbon or drag an existing snippet from the Content Explorer or File List window pane.

How to insert a snippet

1. Open your file.
2. Place your cursor where you want to insert the snippet.
3. In the Insert ribbon, select Snippet. The Insert Snippet Link dialog box opens.
4. Navigate to the snippet that you want to insert and select it.
5. Click OK. The snippet is inserted and is surrounded by brackets (if markers are turned on).
6. Save your work.

Editing Snippets

When you edit a snippet, the changes are automatically updated in every topic where you inserted the snippet.

How to edit a snippet

1. To open the snippet:

• Right-click on the snippet in a topic where it is inserted and select Open Link OR
• Locate the snippet in the Resources\Snippets folder in the Content Explorer and double-click it.

2. In the XML Editor update the snippet.
3. Click Save.

Did that help?

Did it give you any new ideas on how to create your web help or tech docs? Fess up, stranger.

Oh yeah, we’re over here on Facebook.