MadCap Software Adds Authoring for Chatbots and AI with Latest Releases

MadCap Software, a provider of multichannel content authoring, has released MadCap Flare 2019 and MadCap Central April 2019 Release with more functionality for creating, reviewing, and delivering online help, technical documentation, training content, and knowledge management centers.

MadCap Flare and MadCap Central are part of the MadCap Authoring and Management System (AMS). MadCap Flare offers technical authoring and publishing capabilities with advanced features to maximize authoring efficiency, content reuse, and multichannel publishing. MadCap Central is a cloud-based platform for content and project management designed specifically for the documentation industry.

MadCap Flare 2019 introduces a built-in Micro Content Editor that lets authors create new micro content or tag existing content as micro content that can be  digested by chatbots and other machine-learning and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Additionally, Flare adds the following:

• Functionality for publishing content directly to Zendesk with MadCap Connect for Zendesk, a complement to the MadCap Connect for Salesforce plugin, enabling authors to integrate their MadCap Flare content with Zendesk's cloud-based solutions for help desk centers. Using the MadCap Connect for Zendesk plugin, authors can publish MadCap Flare output to a Zendesk Help Center dashboard, enhancing the ability of knowledge bases or FAQs to support service desk tickets on a help desk user's Zendesk dashboard.
• Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) variables, or CSS custom properties, facilitating the reuse of styles;
• A Chinese user interface; and
• A fully redesigned user interface, with updates to UI themes, a new Start Page, and other usability improvements.

The micro content in MadCap Flare can be customized for use in chatbots, virtual reality instructions, field-level help, and a frequently asked questions (FAQ) database, among other applications.

The MadCap Central April 2019 Release also features a redesigned user interface for added speed and improved workflow and performance.

"We are living in a new age where companies are demanding greater content reuse across applications and departments, and end-users or consumers of the content expect quicker and more accurate answers to questions via chatbots and machine-learning apps," said Anthony Olivier, MadCap's founder and CEO, in a statement. "With the newest releases of MadCap Central and MadCap Flare, we are extending our commitment to our growing list of 18,000-plus organizations worldwide that rely on our solutions to adapt to evolving market and technology demands. As a first mover in the industry, in addition to topic-based authoring, we now give everyone using our products the ability to repurpose existing content and create new machine learning-ready micro content, delivering a modern user experience."