Getting training manuals

I have posed this issue before and it has fallen on deaf ears. I would love to be able to download the training documentation Interwoven hands out to people who feel inclined to take any training classes they offer. I have found, because we got our hands on a pirated copy of the training manual for the Advanced Workflow course a couple years back, that the training documentation can be light years more informative than the product documentation we get for the many thousands of dollars we spend for Interwoven products and services - trust me on this, especially for workflow. I don't need to go to training, but why would I not be able to get all the documentation that exists for the standard and advanced functionality that is available with the products we purchased? Why should I have to pay to go to a training class just to get documentation for a product we already own? Makes no sense to me. Please discuss amongst yourselves...

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

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gzevin

Dave,

isn't this the case for most of vendors?

Greg Zevin, Ph.D. Comp. Sc.
Independent Interwoven Consultant/Architect
Sydney, AU

Migrateduser

If you're referring to vendors like Oracle, Rational, etc. I'm sure you're correct. However, with most vendors, adequate documentation is provided in the first place to give the user all the information they need to use the products to their fullest capabilities. Interwoven documentation is woefully inadequate - they have even admitted it for years, yet they have made no attempt to overhaul the doc set. If you look at the workflow manual, it's pathetic. If the base documentation was adequate, the training manuals wouldn't give me anything worthwhile.

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

Migrateduser

Hello --

As indicated in one of the responses you received, most vendors, Interwoven included, view our training manuals and materials as another set of intellectual property. We develop the manuals and materials separately from technical documentation that accompanies the software. This development of training materials is so that the manuals are truly geared to a learning oriented format and flow and work in conjunction with classroom examples. As such, they are also designed to accompany the activity and exercises of the class, and are not intended to stand alone. They are a supporting mechansim to what the instructor is offering, the interactions of the students in class, and the flow and results of lab exercises.

Additionally, because they are intellectual property and do cost us quite a bit in terms of headcount resources and staff time to design, develop, review, test, and continually modify, their cost is covered in the fees charged for the courses for which they are designed. This cost is separate and above the costs of building the software and therefore is not included in the software fees charged to customers. To do so, would raise the software licensing fees.

It is for these reasons that materials are not automatically included with software and that we expect students to attend class in order to receive the materials -- so that there is a context for their use.

While not the answer you desired, it is the reason they are not down loadable. It has been verified recently as also the practice of the majority of the vendors who offer technical training on their technology products, as indicated through a recent survery of the Computer Education Management Association.

Regards,
Jesse Finn, Director WW Education
Interwoven

Hazzie

Well what about those people that have been on the training courses.

We have paid for the course(s) and although we have be given the documentation available on the day in printed form, those manuals can get damaged, lost or indeed interwoven could update them. Is there any chance we can get access to the manuals that in part we have paid for.

I dare say I already know the answer to this one.

Hazzie
TS 5.5.2 on NT.