The wiki has now been "cleaned up" by support staff as part of the changeover to the new "support" system - meaning that a lot of the old partial articles that used to be labeled 'under construction' are either gone or truncated, and the articles that were there but were clearly labeled deprecated or outdated are also either gone, updated, or truncated.

This should certainly help keep users from the frustration of finding articles that appeared relevant at first but don't actually have the useful information sought, but it may actually increase user frustration with simply not being able to find simple step-by-step instructions to help complete a task.

I think one of the problems with the wiki is that instead of trying to be JUST a reference, SmartSimple loaded pretty much every kind of help information into it for a while, and never created any intelligible schema or taxonomy to help users identify which type of resource they should start with, and how to skip unneeded resources to get a simple reference, etc.

A pair of useful help taxonomies would be a great start: One taxonomy for topic areas, and one for resource type.

The topic area taxonomy might look like (VERY incomplete, obvs - and also lacking in indents that would show parent/child relationships due to the groovy comment interface formatting, sorry):

Architecture
Infrastructure
Server
SmartSimple
User Provided
APIs
Interfaces
Classic
Arcadia
UTIs
Portals

...and so on.

The resource type taxonomy might include:
Full Topic Guide
Overview
Design Best Practices
References
Process
Coding
HTML
SQL

...and so on.

If you really want to make it relevant and useful, you can add a third taxonomy for resource format: Articles of different types, Videos, downloadable documents, etc.

Thank you for your feedback, and apologies for the delay in getting back to you. I’d be happy to set up a quick call with anyone interested in sharing their experience with the wiki. I’m especially curious to hear which areas you currently use and which you’d like to see expanded. Feel free to reach out to me directly at jfulton@smartsimple.com with your availability and I will set up a call.

Best regards,
John Fulton
Director of Product Management

Example of component that needs improved documentation : report builder: when is it necessary to use quotes? Single quotes? Double quotes? Can we use any MySQL function (which version?)? How are managed fields having both a value and a label (when inserting such fields in a report, sometimes the ID is displayed, sometimes the value - complex to understand the logic used and sometimes impossible to configure as needed).

Hi Idea Lab. I've provided feedback. Can we get a further response from you? Thank you.

The status of the wiki is emblematic of what SmartSimple values.

This is badly needed

I've actually been told "the Wiki is out of date on that" when trying to find coding references for workflows, etc. I've also noticed that the search results are not always what I'm looking for.

Example: if I type in something like "date formulas" looking for a way to calculate the value of an "End Date" field based on an existing Start Date field contents and the contents of a "duration" field of "24 months" search results show me "list view overview", "custom fields general information" and "upgrades by category" before finally offering me "custom field type: special - calculated value".

Looking at the contents of those pages, "date formula" is most relevant to the fourth offering in the list. However, even there, there's no relevant information on how to do such a date calculation, only how to add a specified number of days to an existing date or find the difference between dates in two existing fields.

This doesn't relate to one particular topic but rather Wiki as a whole. This is were we are directed when we ask about the mechanisms used to build and maintain our SS system. I have lost count on the number of pages that are have 'Please note that this page is currently under construction. There is more information to come.' and have remained that way for a considerable amount of time or where pages have been deleted but are still referenced elsewhere. As a priority I feel that this should be kept up to date if this is to continue as our reference.

The SmartSimple wiki is an incredibly helpful resource. Maintaining it is a great task, but very necessary in order to be able to the most out of SmartSimple.
I appreciate the changelog for the updates, and also the deep technical descriptions - like the "musings of Chin" and descriptions of best practices.

This is just to add my support for the importance of keeping the wiki up to date, for it to remain a valuable resource.

@Fiona - can you expand upon this request and provide more specifics on what topic or area you are requesting? Thanks