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Introducing Method CRM’s Technical Documentation! (more exciting than it sounds)

Good day, Method community!  It’s been a good three months since I started my tenure here at Method CRM, so Errol (my partner in crime and the voice of our User Tutorial videos) indicated to me it’d be high time for me to introduce myself to our clients and the community at large.  My name is Alex, and I have the distinction of being the first-ever dedicated technical documentation specialist to work with the team here at Method.  

“Technical documentation specialist”, by the way, is an overly important-sounding way of saying “he’s the guy who writes stuff”.  

My job is to build out helpful documentation detailing the ins and outs of Method CRM, but even more than that, my job is to make that documentation accessible to everyone.  Most of you are small business owners who often don’t have the time to sit down and “read the manual” every time you want to tweak a setting or find out what a particular drop down menu does.  My mission, as I’ve chosen to interpret it, is to provide you with answers to your questions in easy-to-read, easy-to-understand bite-sized pieces in our Help Center, to save you time and let you get back to doing whatever it is your business does best.

In fact, that’s partly why Errol and I work so closely together: any of you who have seen our tutorial videos know that Errol is a pretty...boisterous guy, and it’s my intention to bring a little of the fun and levity he embodies to our documentation.  Because let’s face it - who among us actually wants to read a thousand-page manual written by a software developer? (No offense to our exceptional dev team, who could probably program my computer to pull a HAL 9000 or something.)  

The best place to start, of course, is at the beginning.  Chapter One of our documentation is live in the Help Center (you can find the first article here) and there you’ll find a “glossary” of some of the most basic elements of Method CRM and how to get around in the system.  We’re going to be rolling out a whole new section detailing the functionality of the Activities tab very soon, and I’d love to hear what you have to say about what kind of job I’m doing.  If you find something that doesn’t work, or something that doesn’t make sense, I want to know!  Of course, I won’t say no to the odd “you’re doing a great job” or “you’re awfully good-looking” message, either, because at the end of the day I’m a writer and we’re all shameless egotists.  But seriously - your feedback helps me do my job more effectively, so don’t hesitate to get in touch.  

Please leave a comment below or you can reach me at:

documentation@methodintegration.com

Thanks for stopping by, and I look forward to serving up more great articles for your discerning tastes!

Comments

 

fran said:

Ok Alex..

Welcome and  Nice work.  Great overview for new customers.  Will convert to this instead of using my own....

July 11, 2013 10:46 PM
 

mlongacre said:

Hi Alex, I think you are going to be my new favorite person at Method!  (Sorry Danny...)

-Mary

July 11, 2013 11:05 PM
 

Method_Alex said:

Fran: so pleased you think so!

Mary: why thank you!

July 12, 2013 7:44 AM
 

Method_Danny said:

@Mary - That's ok Mary. I don't have any hard feelings. =)

July 15, 2013 9:40 AM
 

steveb said:

Welcome Alex,

I just started catching up on inbound RSS feeds and your post is timely.  I have a MethodCRM client that is doing in house development.  They are asking for a schema.  I assume they mean table and element layouts (I've asked for confirmation).  I know it will be a pain to maintain with all of the changes etc. that are and will continue to go on.  But is something like that even on your radar?  Or does it exist and I just don't know about it?

July 24, 2013 3:25 PM
 

Nebo said:

Hey Alex,

  Is there a way to have you on skype or on consulting? It would be a great thing to have some kind of chart showing connections between fields and screens. I've lost like 20 hours already in figuring what screen is shown where. there is a nice hoover option that shows it but not for portals and similar. So chart of connections between fields/tables/screens would be precious.

P.S. If you have found better comic then Gaiman's Sandman please recommend. :D

July 24, 2013 5:59 PM
 

Method_Alex said:

Hello steveb!  

Unfortunately it doesn't look like such a schema is on my radar for a very long time, if at all.  I spoke with our Chief Operations Officer about this issue, and he said it would be supremely difficult for us to upkeep such a roadmap, because every time we changed an element of the back end (like adding a new field for tracking a location, for example) we'd have to update all the references for that field.  Ultimately, Method is just too dynamic a product for a static schema of the type you're suggesting to be feasible in the near future.  However, if your client is doing in-house development, please bear in mind that our Support team is on call from 9-6 EST Monday-Friday, and there's always the potential to book time with one of our Consultant team.  

Sorry about that!

Best,

Alex

July 25, 2013 9:21 AM
 

Method_Alex said:

Hi Nebo

Thanks for your feedback!  If you're looking for the kind of technical support I think might benefit you best, I am the wrong guy to talk to -- but I can direct you to the right people!  The connections you're referencing will eventually be covered in our documentation, but it's not in my docket for some time.  In the meantime, if you find yourself struggling with any element of the program, I'd urge you to get in contact with our Support team, who can likely walk you through the process (certainly, they'd be more helpful than I would on this issue).  You can get our Support line at 1.888.925.6238 extension 2.  They're great guys and I know they can give you a hand with this.

And to answer your other question, Sandman is definitely very high on my list and I don't know if I could recommend something "better", but if you're into that genre I'd highly recommend Bill Willingham's "Fables" series, as well as Brian K. Vaughan's "Saga".  

July 25, 2013 9:27 AM

About Method_Alex

Alex is a veteran writer and editor hailing from Toronto, Canada. He is an honours graduate of the University of Toronto’s Specialist program in rhetoric and composition, and has written for a variety of interests including advertisers, live media, academia, and a variety of news outlets. When he isn’t translating tech-talk for Method CRM, he can be found playing in his band or reading to his son.

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