Zimbra web client user documentation?

[sadams@bigrocksports.com]

I will be training new Zimbra web client users soon and I'm looking for some user documentation that can be printed. I am looking for something very basic as the people I am training are very technically challenged

Thanks,
Shannon

[webman]

I'm in a similar situation, in a school. We decided to create our own documentation and do our own screenshots (and flash videos soon with Wink or CamStudio) etc. I've made a start in this PDF - feel free to take any ideas from that.

[Rich Graves]

The online help is really quite good, and unlike anything you put together, won't immediately become out of date. User support people here are still passing out printed copies of a copy-pasted digest of the ZCS 4 online help because it would be too much work to copy-paste the online help for ZCS 5, to which we upgraded in January. Crazy.

Alas, there are these:

Bug 13194 - JS error while navigating to help from mail client
Bug 23940 - webmail help never finishes loading, generates error in firebug ("Component is not available"

[uxbod]

webman,

thats a nice PDF. clear, precise and straightforward. Ideal crib sheet for people. Once completed would you consider releasing it into the public domain ? I am sure a lot of people would appreciate it.

Keep up the great work

[webman]

Thanks uxbod. No problem at all - I'll provide the source document when more complete.

I agree with Rich Graves - the online help is really good - I've used it extensively myself.

But knowing our main users (teachers), they won't use it and they need a lot of hand-holding. Some of them may even struggle with the PDF I'm doing as it's a huge change from SquirrelMail. Like a lot of things, it just take time to get used to; and it's my job to help them as much as I can.

[jennyl]

Nice job on the PDF. I am in a similar situation. I have to train ~1300 people. I am not planning to spend a lot of time on handouts, because it will be out of date so fast. But I do want to find/create a 10 minute video to promote the coming change. Know of anything?

The one on the Zimbra home page is well done, but old now. What is it? Zimbra 3?

[webman]

I'm not aware of any other videos; but if you're not afraid of spending a little time planning and creating your own then I recommend using either CamStudio or Wink - both free.

I find Wink is better and easier if you want to put your own captions into the video, and you take screen captures one frame at a time. CamStudio constantly records, and captions are cumbersome to set up and use.

Example video using Wink.

[jennyl]

Hi webman,
Yea, I have Captivate and Camtasia. I did create a video. But, not being a graphics kind of gal, it's not great. But it might work...

[Rich Graves]

I made *a lot* of Wink screencasts to demo various things, and even in answer to specific end-user questions. Most are behind a password wall because they reference real people's mail, but here's something I attached to a bug report:

http://rcgraves.googlepages.com/zwc-...e-end-time.htm

General tips for Wink:

- Write a script and practice before recording, so that you don't sound like I do above.

- The very latest version fixes a lot of sound glitches.

- Use a palette. If you use a palette, the file size is smaller than the equivalent generated by any of the commercial tools... and has wider compatibility, too.

- Since there doesn't seem to be any really good free MacOS screencast software, I've used a combination of Wink, VNC, and Vine Server. Works perfectly fine.

[Rich Graves]

WIU's Zimbra Learning Animations are a good example of what could be done, though they're all dated (ZCS 4.5 not 5.0).

Doing that sort of thing well takes time... but less time than preparing for and teaching classes, and less time than answering the same questions over and over in person or over the phone.