Discover a better way to create, review and publish Life Sciences content

Many authors in a Life Sciences documentation world are familiar with the pains of outdated desktop publishing. Manual copying-pasting, collaboration challenges, complicated version control, and wasted time managing documents are just some of the headaches faced in the content authoring process.

Organizations that switch to an online structured component authoring (SCA) solution can improve the speed, accuracy and costs associated with documentation. Where desktop publishing fails to connect the authoring, review, and publishing process, SCA can boost communication across teams, enhance accountability and better utilize approved content — all in one, cloud-based platform.

1. SCA unlocks efficiency in Life Sciences documentation

   Typical desktop publishing tools lack real-time collaboration features. SCA can integrate into any workflow, enabling cross-departmental review in a single forum for discussions and resolutions — no more messy tracked changes or merged versions. Documentation can maintain consistency from start to finish, no matter how many authors or reviewers contribute to the final document.

2. Say “goodbye” to copy and paste

   For medical authors, documentation creation typically involves manually copying and pasting thousands of paragraphs of content across documents. As source content updates, authors are required to manually make incremental changes — assuming they can remember each place they copied the original content. SCA enables authors to reuse approved content blocks to assemble new documents and, if source content changes, updates automatically propagate to wherever duplicated content is located.

3. All-in-one platform builds checks and balances into every step of the content authoring process

   With SCA, visibility into every stage of documentation means every author or reviewer is in alignment. Since authoring, reviewing, and publishing can happen in one platform, there is a reduced chance of errors. Additional features of SCA includes a built-in audit trail so content change details can be available for internal and external reviews and remain accurate throughout the authoring process.

4. Better functionality of SCA results in cost savings across the board

   There are many benefits to SCA solutions, but for organizations with a close watch on the bottom line, changing from desktop publishing to SCA can ensure more productivity and less extraneous expenses. For starters, the streamlined, transparent documentation process means less need to hire resources. Component authoring also enables easier repurposing — anyone can create different document types (ex., Word, PDF, HTML, etc.) for multiple channels from a single project document. Additionally, with SCA, only updated component content is translated greatly reducing translation costs.

   It’s time to move on from inefficient and costly Life Sciences documentation desktop publishing. An SCA solution can leverage the power of the cloud to enable an easy-to-use and more effective platform to author, review, translate and reuse content.