Data Conversion Services to the ASD S1000D Specification

Producing your technical data into an S1000D environment is a smart business decision for your company’s future, but what about all of that legacy technical data from the past? Data conversion is an important consideration for any organization. Don’t retype all of your legacy data, when you can automate conversion from its current format into S1000D Data Modules.

OneStrand’s deep understanding of the S1000D specification, coupled with our vast data management and technical publications experience, ensure we can bring those legacy documents up to the ASD S1000D Specification.

The OneStrand team have over a decade of experience in data conversion from SGML and XML MIL-STD’s and ATA 2100/2200 structures to S1000D, including conversions from common unstructured documents formats such as MS Word and Adobe FrameMaker.

To achieve a successful conversion the most important stage is the “analysis stage”, followed closely by a “proof of concept”.

During the process a Conversion Specification is developed. This identifies the styles that are currently being used and what these styles will become in an S1000D environment. This Conversion Specification typically contains:

  • Elements or data types found in the document set;
  • Examples of where these elements can be found within the document;
  • Fixed rules as to how these elements are identified;
  • A sample of the data identification (or tagging) that will be used for each element;
  • Description of any open items that will need to be resolved.

Typically, the Conversion Specification development process produces a list of elements/styles that have no apparent tags, and a list of elements that can be tagged in more than one way. The Conversion Specification is used as a discussion document during the analysis. Once all element issues are resolved, the final version of the Conversion Specification is submitted to the customer for approval. This step is crucial to ensuring that all parties understand the tagging guidelines so that documents can be converted consistently.

Once the Conversion Specification has been developed, you can then run a conversion of a sample document. Once this has been completed a comparison of the source to the converted content needs to be completed to ensure that all content has been successfully converted.

If there is any missing content, investigations need to occur to determine why that content was not included. If necessary, an update to the Conversion Specification needs to occur. This process needs to continue with another trial run to make sure that content is now being successfully converted.

Once the proof of concept above has been successful then the full process can commence. This can be a staged process so that the content is fully managed. As this content is converted the information can be added into an S1000D CSDB and can then be included in a data, IETP or PDF delivery.

The keys to success in our projects are the efforts we make to understand our clients’ needs. From the analysis designed to thoroughly understand everything about your data, through to the conversion, everything is focused on quality and on-time delivery.

 OneStrand’s quality control process incorporates many specific quality check points throughout the conversion phase, XML validation, and review.

Let our tools and expertise work for you! Contact the OneStrand Team for a review of your legacy data today.

Find out more

To view our webinar, Titled: “Things to consider during Data Conversion to S1000D” click here.