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Documentation easteregg or disaster ?

  • 1.  Documentation easteregg or disaster ?

    IBM TechXchange Speaker
    Posted Tue April 06, 2021 03:48 AM
    Apparently since today, the documentation portal is "all new".
    Not the first time, and not the first time they screwed it up.

    All Google links end up on some homepage - and google always was a good (the best?) way to find IBM's documentation. This alone is frustrating, and it also means that all bookmarks are not worth a cent anymore.
    But let's try the new portal.
    So:
    • I go to the documentation home page https://www.ibm.com/docs/en.
    • I search for (say) Netcool ServiceNow Gateway
    • I am presented with 6.996 results
    • I click on the first one, apparently the link to the related doc page
    • But - that gets me to the Netcool documentation Home page.
    • I click on the middle button "Omnibus 8.1"
    • And I end up on a page with headlines in chinese characters

    What the hell have they been doing ?! This is not a playground for new look-and-feel-experiments! This is what we use for our daily work !!

    Apologies for expressing my frustration here - but access to IBM documentation is just for everybody using the products (Netcool in my case). And I can neither understand nor am I willing to accept how IBM again manages to make our lives difficult.

    Perhaps somebody here is able to escalate (or to educate me on how to use the new portal correctly....)

    Michael

    ------------------------------
    Michael Troitzsch
    Solution Architect
    DICOS GmbH
    Darmstadt
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Documentation easteregg or disaster ?

    IBM TechXchange Speaker
    Posted Tue April 06, 2021 06:43 AM
    Hello Michael, Apologies for the experience. I have escalated this to the development team. Will get back to you shortly.

    Thanks, Veer

    ------------------------------
    VEERAMANI NAMBI
    Offering Manager, GoToMarket - Communities
    IBM
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Documentation easteregg or disaster ?

    IBM TechXchange Speaker
    Posted Tue April 06, 2021 08:29 AM
    Edited by Isabell Sippli Tue April 06, 2021 09:22 AM
    Apologies from my side as well for the experience. I noticed similar issues myself. We will look into this.

    It will take some time until google indexes the new pages, and then hopefully we should be able to get to the new pages directly.

    In the meantime, here are some direct links.
    Searching within them works for me for other terms, but e.g. search for ServiceNow in the integrations one doesn't lead to results, even though the page is there. So that is another issue to be looked at.


    IBM Netcool Operations Insight docs - https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/noi
    IBM Operations Analytics Log Analysis docs - https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/oala
    IBM Operations Analytics Predictive Insights docs - https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/oapi
    IBM Tivoli Netcool OMNIbus docs - https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/netcoolomnibus/8.1
    IBM Cloud Event Management docs - https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/cem
    IBM Runbook Automation docs - https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/runbook-automation
    IBM Alert Notification docs - https://wwwstage.ibm.com/docs/en/alert-notification
    IBM Agile Service Manager docs - https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/nasm
    IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager docs - https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/tbsm/6.2.0
    IBM Tivoli Netcool/Impact docs - https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/tivoli-netcoolimpact
    IBM Netcool/OMNIbus Integrations docs - https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/netcoolomnibus/8?topic=tivoli-netcoolomnibus-integrations


    ------------------------------
    Isabell Sippli
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Documentation easteregg or disaster ?

    IBM TechXchange Speaker
    Posted Tue April 06, 2021 10:28 AM
    Thanks Isabell, for picking this up. I see its improving a bit, now.
    That google's indexing takes a while is clear - however such a migration "could" encompass reasonable redirection links.
    But perhaps there's too much AI involved ;)

    ------------------------------
    Michael Troitzsch
    Solution Architect
    DICOS GmbH
    Darmstadt
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Documentation easteregg or disaster ?

    IBM TechXchange Speaker
    Posted Tue April 06, 2021 10:42 AM
    @Stacy Pedersen Hi Stacy, I know that you had picked this up already. Tagging you.​

    ------------------------------
    VEERAMANI NAMBI
    Offering Manager, GoToMarket - Communities
    IBM
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: Documentation easteregg or disaster ?

    Posted Tue April 06, 2021 12:30 PM

    Hi Michael, the IBM team has been working hard to deliver a new and improved documentation site that brings a lot of benefits. The language overriding the platform issue is currently being resolved. The site went live on April 1st so there could have been some caching issues. All previous links redirect to the new site. If you have any other documentation concerns or questions, please feel free to reach out to me. 

    Thank you, 

    Stacy Pedersen



    ------------------------------
    Stacy Pedersen
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: Documentation easteregg or disaster ?

    Posted Tue April 06, 2021 12:35 PM
    Stacy,

    The previous links redirect to the home page of the new site, not to the old documentation on the new site, and that's the problem. And the top hits on any Google search go to the home page of the new site, rather than to the document one is searching for. This is not the first time that this has happened to the IBM documentation, and it is frustrating to have it happen again (granted, the last time was several years ago). The situation is frustrating to customers and partners alike.

    Frank

    ------------------------------
    Frank Tate
    Gulfsoft Consulting
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    Original Message


  • 8.  RE: Documentation easteregg or disaster ?

    Posted Tue April 06, 2021 02:59 PM
    Hi Frank, from my own testing just now of some bookmarked links and googling product documentation, the links work and redirect to the IBM Doc product page. If you send me some bookmarks that you are having problems with, IBM can explore this further on our end. 

    Thank you for your feedback,

    Stacy Pedersen

    ------------------------------
    Stacy Pedersen
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    Original Message


  • 9.  RE: Documentation easteregg or disaster ?

    Posted Tue April 06, 2021 03:20 PM
    A Google search for "netcool email probe" shows exactly what I want as the first result:


    The link is:

    https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSSHTQ/email-pdf.pdf 

    Which redirects to:

    https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/netcoolomnibus

    This one is just broken, but I haven't tested it in a while, so it may be unrelated.

    Maximo App Dev Guide

    Frank

    ------------------------------
    Frank Tate
    Gulfsoft Consulting
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 10.  RE: Documentation easteregg or disaster ?

    IBM TechXchange Speaker
    Posted Wed April 07, 2021 02:33 AM
    Hi Stacy,
    apologies, but so far I cannot see a "new and improved documentation site that brings a lot of benefits".
    • OK. The language issue with Chinese characters apparently has been resolved. Minimal thing anyway.
    • Old links (Google, Bookmarks) are not redirected properly - they just end up in a kind of product home page, like Frank Tate pointed out.
      • Yes, I understand that proper redirects would have been a lot of work. But you also must understand that you've just taken away our reference information that we need on a daily basis to make our customer's systems work!
    • The search function within the new doc portal isn't helpful at all.
      • Google search for <netcool message bus probe> gets me to the "Netcool/Omnibus documentation" home page
      • When I enter the same search string here in the doc portal, I get a large number of useless hits containing any of the words
      • When I search for <netcool "message bus probe"> nothing is found "in the product version you were searching", and the "related results" are not helpful.
      • Likewise for <netcool "message bus" probe>
      • When I go down one leve to "Integrations", just the same result: No hits, just "related results" that don't help
      • When I go down one more lebvel to "Probes and probe integrations", I can find the entry
      • And that finally gets to to the point where I wanted to go.
    • Interesting enough, the link behind above entry is  https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/SSSHTQ_int/omnibus/probes/message_bus/wip/concept/messbuspr_intro.html, which is very similar to the link that Google finds (and I had bookmarked): https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSSHTQ/omnibus/probes/message_bus/wip/concept/messbuspr_intro.html
      • So, how difficult would a redirect have been (at least in this example)
    (All examples above without caching in a private browser session at 08:15 CEST on April 7th)

    I appreciate your plan was/is to improve things - and I do hope that things develop over time (especially with google's help, which always was the better search engine for IBM's documentation).
    But I hope you also understand the frustration of us as daily users of this important tool.

    Thanks,
    Michael

    ------------------------------
    Michael Troitzsch
    Solution Architect
    DICOS GmbH
    Darmstadt
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 11.  RE: Documentation easteregg or disaster ?

    Posted Wed April 07, 2021 01:21 PM
    Michael, the team has found an underlying issue with the OMNIBus Integrations documentation, which was impacting the IBM Docs search results. They are working to resolve the issue. In the meantime, searching IBM Docs for "message bus probe" now results in the correct topic (https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/netcoolomnibus/8?topic=integrations-probe-message-bus) in first place: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/search/netcool%20message%20bus%20probe

    Frank, the team is also looking into the PDF links.
    ​
    Thank you

    Stacy Pedersen

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    Stacy Pedersen
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 12.  RE: Documentation easteregg or disaster ?

    Posted Fri April 09, 2021 01:50 PM
    Hi everyone, the team has improved the OMNIbus doc links and the PDF links are working. For example, these previous PDF links now open up in IBM Docs:

    https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSSHTQ/aloadv6-pdf.pdf
    https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSSHTQ/gen_mtosi-pdf.pdf
    https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSSHTQ/messbuspr-pdf.pdf

    Thank you,

    ------------------------------
    Stacy Pedersen
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 13.  RE: Documentation easteregg or disaster ?

    IBM TechXchange Speaker
    Posted Fri April 09, 2021 02:27 PM
    Thanks for the follow-up Stacy !

    ------------------------------
    VEERAMANI NAMBI
    Offering Manager, GoToMarket - Communities
    IBM
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 14.  RE: Documentation easteregg or disaster ?

    IBM TechXchange Speaker
    Posted Mon April 12, 2021 07:54 AM
    Hi Stacy,
    I appreciate your speedy reaction to the issues found, and I can confirm that things have improved.
    I still have to be convinced about the benefits of the new documentation portal and only can hope that google will soon be of help as it always was.

    Without spending much more time in testing, let me bring some points to your attention:
    • When I search for a topic, I am often presented with links to older versions of Netcool products on top of the list. When I click those, I end up in a "We are sorry, product no longer supported page". Understood - but why did I get the result then at all ?
      • Example: Search for <netcool probe rawcapture>  - the second link is for Omnibus 7.3
      • (Interesting enough, the first one is for 7.4 - supported but years old - and none on the first page is for the current version 8.1)
    • It would be very beneficial if the contents of the search bar could remain - so taht I am able to refine my search when I'm not happy with the result. Right now (correct me if I'm wrong) I have to reenter the whole search.
    • The search doesn't react to common mechanisms like "+".
      • Everything seems to be an "OR" search
        • <probe rawcapture> finds 29 results
        • <netcool probe rawcapture> finds 9248 results
        • <+netcool +probe +rawcapture> finds 9248 results, too
      • And I can't find any hints on searching - apart from the "Guided tour" that tries to get me to "trending documentation". No comment.

    Regards,
    Michael

    ------------------------------
    Michael Troitzsch
    Solution Architect
    DICOS GmbH
    Darmstadt
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 15.  RE: Documentation easteregg or disaster ?

    IBM TechXchange Speaker
    Posted Mon April 12, 2021 09:03 AM
    Am thinking if we can start a separate thread on the documentation issues. And get feedback from other members as well. I will start a thread and let other members can report as well? @Michael Troitzsch, What do you think?​​

    ------------------------------
    VEERAMANI NAMBI
    Offering Manager, GoToMarket - Communities
    IBM
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 16.  RE: Documentation easteregg or disaster ?

    IBM TechXchange Speaker
    Posted Mon April 12, 2021 09:05 AM
    Sounds like a good idea !
    Thanks,
    Michael

    ------------------------------
    Michael Troitzsch
    Solution Architect
    DICOS GmbH
    Darmstadt
    ------------------------------

    Original Message