Guides library
| resco.Guides |
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The guides editor or guides library is a dedicated tool for managing and editing guides. Intended for back office workers, it is designed to be used on a computer in a web browser. The tool can be divided into three main feature blocks:
- Library for managing guides
- Editor for editing guides
- Statistics for supervising guide usage
Starting the library
To start the library, log in to your organization.
| On Dataverse, find Resco Guides in the list of published apps and select Guides. |
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| On Salesforce, log in to the Resco for Salesforce page and select Guides Editor. | ||
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| On the Resco Cloud landing page, select Guides Editor. |
If you are using a custom Resco Cloud landing page (for example, a manager's or admin project) and the guides library is not available in the menu, edit that app project in Woodford, go to Guides, and click Add Editor to Home. |
Managing guides
The main screen of the library shows the list of guides.
The left pane lets you filter guides according to their status, category, author, tag, and related records.
The top row allows you to search the guides list and switch to the statistical dashboard.
The toolbar offers functions for managing guides:
- Create a new guide
- Edit a guide
- Duplicate (clone) a guide (only available on Resco Cloud)
- Archive a guide (Set its state to archived. Archived guides are not visible in the mobile app by default.)
- Import and export
- Share: Available for published guides. Displays a QR code that you can scan on your phone to open the guide. Also displays a link that you can use in the Questionnaire Designer to link the guide from a questionnaire.
- Preview
- Feedback
- Publish
- View as (switch between list view and grid view)
- Sort by
- Sort order
Single and bulk actions
You can select one or multiple guides. Depending on the selection, specific commands become available.
- Single guide
Hover over a guide to display inline buttons:
- Edit
- Duplicate (clone)
- Preview
- Share
- Publish or unpublish
- Multiple guides
You can check multiple guides (up to 10) to select them. The following bulk actions are available:
- Export
- Archive
- Publish and unpublish (requires that all selected guides are in a suitable state)
Editing guides
The editor is accessed from the library.
- To create a guide, click New Guide.
- To edit a guide, select a guide in the library and click the edit button.
Top toolbar
- Publish/Unpublish – make a guide available or unavailable in the mobile app
- Preview – preview the guide in your browser
- Save – save all changes
- Feedback – review the feedback left by guide readers, as well as the reported issues
- Share – display a QR code or link that points to the guide in the mobile app
- Localize – translate the guide to different languages
Steps explorer pane
This pane lists the steps available in your guide. You can drag steps around to rearrange them and add new steps. Toggle between grid view and list view.
Content pane/properties pane
The central pane displays the content of the step selected in the steps explorer pane. This is where you assemble individual steps. Combine images or other documents with text blocks.
You can switch to the guide properties using the toggle in the toolbar. Use the properties pane to set up guide categories and associate guides with entities. You can also edit guide authors.
Media library pane
The right pane shows the images and other documents you can use in your guide.
Text blocks
Each guide step consists of a title, an image block, and one or more text blocks. Only the title is mandatory; all the other blocks are optional.
Regular steps support three types of text blocks:
- Description
- Tip
- Warning
Tip and Warning blocks are displayed in a distinct color. Use them to attract attention and keep the reader engaged.
The cover page is a special case and allows only a single text block:
- Guide description
Rich text
The Description block is the only text block supporting rich text.
Image blocks
Each step, as well as the cover page, contains one image block. The following media types are allowed:
- images
- PDF documents
- video files
- embedded YouTube videos
Media are added to a guide in two steps:
- Upload items to the media library (or link YouTube videos).
- Drag items from the library to the media placeholder.
- Image display options
Once an image is part of a step, you can select how to display it:
- Fill
- Fit
- Auto-height (does not apply to image gallery, see below)
- Image editor
The guides library includes a built-in image editor. You can resize images, add text, arrows, etc.
- Videos
Using the guide editor, you can embed YouTube videos and/or include local videos (limited size).
When harvesting guides in the field, users can record videos using their device (limited duration).
| Note | Media are saved as notes. Databases often have limits on how large a note attachment can be. The maximum allowed size in the library is 10 MB, but your backend might have a lower limit. Your backend admin might be able to increase the limit. |
| Note | Videos recorded on some Android devices are by default saved in the webm format. Unfortunately, iOS devices often don't support this format. As a workaround, a guides administrator can download the video from the guide using the guide editor, convert it to mp4 format using a third-party tool, then upload it back to the guide. |
- Gallery
Each guide step can contain multiple images/videos/PDF documents in a gallery. Up to 5 documents can be used. Multiple documents are not available on the cover page.
Guide properties
While editing a guide, click Properties to display guide metadata. To return to the guide steps, click Content.
The Properties tab of the Properties pane offers the following settings:
- Edit the title of the guide
- Add or remove guide categories.
- Associate guide with selected entity records. For example, you might want to associate maintenance guides with assets.
- Add or remove guide tags.
- Add or remove guide authors.
- View the dates when the guide was created and last modified.
The Localizations tab offers the following settings:
- Primary language
- Secondary language(s)
Localizing guides
Guides can be localized. This is a rather simple process.
- In guide properties, on the Localizations tab, select the primary language and at least one secondary language for your guide, then save all changes.
- A new Localize button appears in the toolbar, which allows you to enter a special localization mode.
- Select the translation language. The original text and the translation appear side by side.
- Translate the texts.
- When you're done, click Exit Localization mode and save all changes.
In the app, users can select their preferred language.
AI tools
The Guides library includes AI-powered tools that simplify guide creation and translation.
OpenAI's GPT-3.5 model is used for the following functions:
- Create a guide for you by describing it.
- Create a guide from an uploaded PDF document.
- Translate a guide.
- Generate tags.
- AI Assistant: Ask a question and get a generated answer sourced from the published guides.
The first four functions help guide editors, and the last serves mobile users.
Contact your business development manager or technical support at Resco for more information. If you want to try out these features, Resco will enable them for your organization on request.
Create a guide by describing it.
Example of an AI-generated guide
Example of an AI-translated guide
AI-generated tags
AI Assistant
To make the AI Assistant available in your Resco mobile apps:
- Contact Resco to make the feature available in your organization.
- In Woodford, edit the app project and add "Guides Assistant" to your app's home screen; then publish the project.
- In the Guides library, click Init AI Assistant. This crunches existing guides into content readable by AI.
- In the app, synchronize it and then use the new Guides Assistant function on the home screen to start your conversation.
Add assistant to home screen
Convert guides into AI-readable format
AI assistant in action
