Oracle User Productivity Kit 3.5 Review

Oracle’s User Productivity Kit or UPK is an interesting product that can change the way developers implement software. An application is not just developed and shipped to user as developers have to create extensive documentation, user guides and even sample scripts to show how the application was developed. This can take time and resource which could cost a lot in any business setting. Through UPK, software developers should be able to create simulations about the application complete with documentation to guide users and other developers who wanted to adapt their system.

First Book Impression

As an instructional guide, the book is quite bulky. The book has more than 500 pages - thicker compared to other books published by PackT. However, it is important to remember that there are only a few references in the market that deals with the subject. It’s also a very specific product which will naturally require such volume of instructions.

About the Author

Dirk Manuel has been working with companies that require training tools for specific applications. This demand has led him to work on Oracle’s UPK for more than five years. Because of his extensive experience, he is able to provide broad outlook on UPK especially on how to use the tool from Oracle on real situations.

The Chapters

The book is divided into 13 chapters, two appendices and an index. Each chapter has a unique topic to discuss but all are interwoven. The following are short description of each chapter:

Chapter 1: Oracle User Productivity Kit

This chapter discusses the history and practicality of the product from Oracle. The interesting part of the chapter is the detailed explanation on how to use UPK. The styles and formats are extensively discussed in this chapter. A section on recording data is also talked about.

Chapter 2: Organizing Your Library

This chapter deals with the basic information that will be discussed or used during the simulation. What should be noted in this chapter is on choosing the correct structure for the library. This includes the creation of folders for an easily accessible data during simulation.

Chapter 3: Recording a Simulation

The first recording is a very interesting part in working with UPK. This chapter will provide step-by-step instructions on how to capture a simulation and the additional options that will come during the recording of the simulation. In this chapter, take note on the discussions on empty topic since this will be often used in real business situations.

Chapter 4: Editing the Topic

After creating a simulation, a good follow-up would be to edit the simulation. This chapter provides extensive data on how to make some changes on the already created topic. Aside from basic editing, the chapter will also deal with adjustments on the actual recording which is very important in ensuring quality output.

Chapter 5: Building an Outline

This is a relatively short chapter but it provides a great explanation on the importance of an outline. There’s also an interesting comparison with the outline’s role compared to a library of data in UPK.

Chapter 6: Publishing Content

Aside from creating the first recording, publishing the content is another challenging task if done for the first time. This is the reason why extensive explanation is provided in this chapter as it deals with two subtopics: online publishing and document publishing. Each subtopic comes with step-by-step instructions. The most interesting part of the chapter is on how to incorporate the published content to other formats such as other applications.

Chapter 7: Version Management

As the software will receive updates, the training tool should also receive updates. This chapter provides instructions on how to implement upgrades on documentation as well as simulation. This chapter also reveals a special feature of UPK. While the tutorial can be easily upgraded, to downgrade the simulation to its previous version is very simple.

Chapter 8: Allowing Alternatives

In this chapter, instructions on UPK will focus on creating tutorials for alternative solutions on a given task. This chapter will practically create different solutions or options in the tutorial. This chapter is a lot more like editing content but new information and steps are added instead of simply editing the already created content.

Chapter 9: Adding Value to Topics

This chapter will help in adding more data to the tutorial as values will now be added to the topics. This chapter discusses how each frame will be provided with value. The discussion mostly focuses on webpage implementation and the creation of glossary. Take note of the short discussion on version differences as this is very important when implementing updates with newer versions of UPK.

Chapter 10: Adding Value in the Player

This is another important chapter since this deal with user’s perspective. In this chapter, the simulation discussed could be changed based on perspective. The player’s point of view could be changed so that users will better understand the processes encountered by various individuals working with the software.

Chapter 11: Incorporating Sounds Into Your Topics

One of the best features of UPK is discussed in this chapter. Instead of simply showing how the application works through a simulation, sounds can be incorporated including small sound files that come with instructions on how to use the application. The chapter deals with implementing sound by adding them to the library and on how to edit the sound to synch in the simulation.

Chapter 12: Configuring UPK

This chapter deals with further customization of the simulation. Each part of the template file is discussed in this chapter as well as utilizing the newly created customized template.

Chapter 13: Localizing Your Content

The final chapter deals with languages. The chapter will show how to make some changes on the simulation so that it would come out in a specific language. Part of the chapter also deals with adding support to a new language on top of the existing language used in the simulation.

Target Readers/Conclusion

The book is a beginner’s guide to Oracle UPK because it deals with the very basics and builds up instructions when the process gets complicated. But this doesn’t mean advanced users cannot use this book. This can be considered as a reference book because of the extensive discussion of the basics of UPK. Although updates will be implemented on Oracle UPK, the basic tools used here will not go through drastic changes.

The book is highly recommended for every software developer who wanted to work with Oracle UPK. The screenshots is used extensively so that users will know what will happen when they work on a specific part of the application. While UPK could be a challenging tool to use, the instructional book provides a step-by-step guide on how to deal with each process.

Read Chapter 9: Adding Value to Topics Sample Chapter