ClickHelp

If you've used any help authoring tool in the past, ClickHelp is very easy to learn. And if you haven't used a HAT before, I think ClickHelp would be one of the easiest places to start. The interface is intuitive, they have a robust help system, and their support is outstanding. ClickHelp has all the features I needed to create a documentation system from scratch, including built-in styles, single sourcing options, quick access to the html behind the text editor, and multiple publication options. And if something doesn't make sense right away, they have great help documentation to explain a feature or a process. They will even do branding for your documentation portal. ClickHelp Support is the best product support I've had. I've been using ClickHelp for about 6 months and they always get back to me later the same day or the next morning with the most thorough explanations, including screenshots. Most of my support questions have been about customizing the CSS in a way I can't figure out, and they always show me what I need to do, improving my knowledge along the way. I really can't say enough about their support, and it's obvious that a good support team is very important to their company. They also have a place to put in product suggestions, and they actually follow up with you about your use case for the suggestion and how it will benefit you.

I think the reviewing functionality could be better. Right now, reviewers need to log in and they can only leave comments. For areas where it would be eaiser to use something more like track changes, some reviewers find the process a little frustrating. Also, when I'm editing based on comments, the comments don't stay open on the screen, so I have to keep re-opening the comment as I'm editing. I think it could be easier to add videos that are on your computer and not saved to YouTube or Vimeo. It's a bit of a process to get videos added from the File Manager.

I started a help portal from scratch for several different software products. I expected a much longer timeframe to get up and running, but ClickHelp makes everything so easy that the portal came together quicker than we all expected. I actually hadn't heard of ClickHelp before starting research on which HAT to buy, but after using product demos for a few different products, it was an easy choice to go with ClickHelp.