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Army Publishing Directorate replaces Arbortext Editor and legacy systems with Microsoft Word and Intelligent Content software by Ictect

SITUATION

The Army Publishing Directorate (APD) supports readiness as the Army’s centralized publications and forms management organization. APD authenticates, publishes, indexes, and manages Department of the Army (DA) publications and forms to ensure that Army policy is current and can be developed or revised quickly.

Army Publications are created and managed in accordance with Department of the Army Pamphlet 25-40. DA Pam 25-40 indicates the SECARMY requirement is for DA administrative publications to remain within a 5-year currency window.

With 17,000 active publications in the APD Portfolio and a 5-year currency window, over 3,000 publishing actions per year are updated to meet the Secretary of the Army (SECARMY) currency requirement. The APD workload is 1,800 publication publishing actions requiring a significant increase in publishing actions to meet the SECARMY currency requirement.

APD utilized multiple products, including some older technologies. APD used the following products for its publishing process:

  • Microsoft Word was used for authoring.
  • Administrative Publications Information Program (APIP), a contractor developed tool, was used to convert the Word document to XML and SGML.
  • ArborText, an XML/SGML editor, was used to edit publications. Editors pointed out challenges with tables and styling.
  • WinComp was used for composing documents from the XML/SGML source. If the XML was not good, issues in the formatted document would need fixing.
  • Astoria was the XML content repository.
  • Adobe tools were used for last minute changes and post-PDF editing activities, including compliance with Section 508 accessibility requirements.

A modernization effort was undertaken to replace the legacy systems to reduce time and cost for APD.

APD Document

…it’s a great product. It contains many checks (inconsistencies in capitalization, hyphenation, enforced style rules, generates various lists, and so forth) and the software improved the accuracy and quality of the publications.”

SOLUTION

Ictect proposed a solution to move to a single product for all publications – Microsoft Word. Ictect developed a prototype to demonstrate how all of the publication editing and formatting requirements could be met using Microsoft Word with the Intelligent Content Tools (icTools) plug-in. APD selected Deloitte Consulting to implement the overall Publication Lifecycle Management Solution with Ictect as a subcontractor to implement the Edit and Format tools.

Ictect implemented the solution working with editors and publishing analysts at APD. Editor Dagmar Gdula provided editorial expertise for administrative publications of all media types. She said, “I had a great experience with Ictect. They are extremely professional and very reliable. Ictect provided great support throughout the entire process of creating the software. Ictect also ensured that the staff was knowledgeable in regards to APD needs and provided training anytime software changes were made.”

The solution was implemented and configured for the following types of Army publications:

  • Army Regulations (AR)
  • Department of the Army Pamphlets (DA Pam)
  • Department of the Army General Orders (DA GO)
  • Army Directives (AD)
  • Department of the Army Memorandums (DA Memo), and
  • All Army Activities (ALARACT)

APD Editor Dagmar Gdula additionally stated, “In my opinion it’s a great product. The software is a customized add-in to Word according to APD publishing standards and is a time saver for the editor. It contains many checks (inconsistencies in capitalization, hyphenation, enforced style rules, generates various lists, and so forth) and the software improved the accuracy and quality of the publications.”