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Paligo Reviews

3 Ratings
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Score 8.0 out of 100

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Reviews (1-3 of 3)

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May 20, 2019

Steep Learning Curve, Worth The Effort

Monica White | TrustRadius Reviewer
Monica White
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use Paligo in the Technical Documentation department to structure and publish the software guides. We use the Salesforce integration to push the content to Support and the HTML5 publication capacity to publish directly to internal access.
The ability to cross-reference and reuse content allows our technical writers to be succinct in topics while still presenting useful information across multiple products with a consistent message throughout.
  • The topic/publication structure is quite graceful. It makes setting up an outline of content quite intuitive, and after the tools are identified and defined, it's much simpler to set up a large document and work with others to produce it.
  • Strict field definitions and use cases make topic structuring inherent in the workflow, which brings more attention to content handling. The train of thought required to utilize the tool also improves the train of thought required to focus the content, making for a better ultimate publication.
  • The output capabilities and Salesforce integration make publishing the files very easy.
  • The learning curve is a bit steep, especially for anyone who's never worked in a true content authoring tool before. It takes a bit of work to move from a Word atmosphere to Paligo, but the training sessions address all of those issues and more.
  • I wish there were more focused formatting tools. At this point, I don't know how to change the text color or format my output beyond the legacy defaults I inherited when I started this job. My fellow writers and I still sometimes struggle with putting things where we want them to go simply because they aren't the right field type at that location.
Before I took the intermediate training, I was so frustrated with Paligo that I mentioned it negatively in a networking event. Now that I have taken the training, I will be correcting that comment at the next one. :)
However, part of what I inherited was a badly managed library, and I am working hard with my fellow writers to restructure and re-present the content. I have only been working with Paligo for a month and a half, and while it's been a struggle to get here, I'm glad I learned it so that I can truly utilize its content reuse strengths across three different product lines.
It probably would not be ideal for desktop layout or on-demand production environments.
The training is exceptional, and follow-up support is absolutely comprehensive. The main minds behind this company are dedicated to its success, and you can tell by how responsive they are to their customers.

I almost feel as if I have a professional connection with my main contact for this company, and it makes me confident that any time I reach out, there will always be a supportive answer following. This is an excellent aspect for ANY company, and Paligo has it in spades. Thank you, Mike.
Read Monica White's full review
November 29, 2018

Paligo is a great CCMS and structured authoring tool!

Sarah Holdgrafer | TrustRadius Reviewer
Sarah Holdgrafer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Currently, only my team uses Paligo. My team creates end-user help articles through ZenDesk Guide. Paligo is a CCMS that allows us to use structured authoring to manage all our content and publish not just to ZenDesk, but to PDF and HTML5 as well.

Paligo allows us to single source the majority of our end-user content, reuse topics across multiple articles, publish to multiple channels, filter for languages and markets by country, manage content in an intuitive way, and remove all styling concerns from the content creation process so we can focus just on writing the content and managing article images and gifs. Our article styles are handled all through our external CSS, which automatically applies to articles when we publish to Zendesk. This makes our content creation process shorter overall and allows us to reuse content in multiple formats with different styling, without creating the content from scratch each time.

In addition to managing our knowledge base content, we've also created feature-level user guides in PDF to distribute to select users, and PDF guides to send to developer partners as product documentation required for the plugin development approval process.
  • Topic reuse - many of our tutorial and how-to articles include procedures with the same first steps. Reuse allows us to create these steps once, including images, and reuse them in as many articles as we need.
  • Single sourcing - At any time if the text or images in reused topics need updating, we just update the original topic and the changes reflect in every article that uses that topic.
  • Content management - the topic and media management is excellent. we can organize however we need, rename topics and images as needed and move them around within the folder structure without breaking any links to the topics / articles they are used in (each topic and asset has a unique ID number that doesn't change, allow us to rename and move assets to best suit our needs)
  • Filtering and variables - we can create a single topic that includes all the information for different markets (in this case, different content for accounts in different countries) and by using filtering and variables when building the content and in the publishing workflow I can publish just the US content to our US help center, the UK content to the UK help center, and the Australian content to the Australia help center, but using manage a single article within Paligo itself.
  • Translation and localization workflow - the translation workflow (sending topics to be translated into another language) and localization workflow (publishing the same content in multiple languages) works well within the ZenDesk integration. It uses the ZenDesk localization settings to ensure the proper translation ends up in the correct articlein Zendesk.
  • Speed - since it is cloud-based we do sometimes run into speed issues in loading or saving content
  • steep learning curve requiring training - the Paligo trainer is great, and their help center is also very good, but for individuals not already well versed in structured authoring it's a bit of an uphill battle to really understand why the UI works the way it does. that said, their support is incredibly helpful and enthusiastic!
  • Stats - it would be great to have easier access to data showing which users on my team have created what content and performed what actions within the app or on specific content. This is mostly a manager need as I need to report progress to my manager regularly.
A recommendation would be dependent on their needs and numerous other factors, including their publishing channels. For my situation, where a good chunk of content (especially images) are used across dozens of articles, we're documenting the use of an entire SaaS platform and the 100+ integrations we have, and we publish different versions of some content based on account country, it's an ideal fit. Any help center that has more than 100 articles hosted on ZenDesk could potentially benefit from switching to a cloud-based CCMS.

Structured authoring is less appropriate for managing content that is constantly changing or doesn't have a unified structure, like blogs, for instance.
The support is quick, the team very knowledgeable and invested in my success. The only reason I didn't give it a 10 is because there is no chat support (yet). But, so far, the responses have been quick enough that hasn't been an issue.
Read Sarah Holdgrafer's full review
March 18, 2019

Great tool for serious technical writers

Paul LaBarbera | TrustRadius Reviewer
Paul LaBarbera
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We're using Paligo to manage the documentation libraries for several products. After a merger, we needed to consolidate documentation into a single platform and workflow. We were previously authoring in Zendesk and Confluence. Paligo has many benefits: A topic-based XML authoring tool provides flexibility with your content. While there is extra work involved compared to authoring a random Zendesk article, this flexibility lets my team adapt to a changing industry quickly. We're no longer locked into a single platform that we push our content into.
  • Once you get the hang of it, the workflow and UX lets you build highly structured content relatively quickly.
  • The number of publishing options is outstanding.
  • If you're disciplined, you can maintain a giant documentation library that is very well organized. Content re-use can be done at an enterprise-wide level.
  • The SaaS platform occasionally hiccups on us. This has never resulted in lost content, but we'll occasionally get "Cannot connect to server errors". Admittedly, this hasn't happened much at all lately.
  • The Zendesk publication feature is great (no author Help Authoring Tool has it built in), but the feature set could be expanded.
Paligo is not appropriate if you are not interested in structured authoring. If you do not value having your content in extensible XML formats, then the value of Paligo is limited (but your customers will notice the lazy attitude in your writing style). If you really value the content you're producing, you should be using an XML-based authoring tool. Paligo is best in class.
Read Paul LaBarbera's full review

Paligo Scorecard Summary

Likelihood to Recommend (3)
8.0
Usability (1)
8.0
Support Rating (2)
9.8

What is Paligo?

Paligo, headquartered in Stockholm, offers their component content management system (CCMS), supporting the creation and publishing of technical documentation and help systems.
Categories:  Help Authoring

Paligo Technical Details

Operating Systems: Unspecified
Mobile Application:No

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Paligo?

Paligo, headquartered in Stockholm, offers their component content management system (CCMS), supporting the creation and publishing of technical documentation and help systems.

Who uses Paligo?

The most common users of Paligo are Mid-size Companies from the Alternative Medicine industry.