Manuals

Application Management is responsible for the management of manuals for all applications. Although these are normally developed by the Application Development teams or third party suppliers, Application Management is responsible for ensuring that the manuals are relevant to the operational versions of the applications.

Three types of manuals are generally maintained by Application Management:

• Design manuals contain information about the structure and architecture of the application. These are helpful for creating reports or defining event correlation rules. They could also help in diagnosing problems.
• Administration or management manuals describe the activities required to maintain and operate the application at the levels of performance specified in the Design phase. These manuals will also provide detailed troubleshooting, Known Error and Fault descriptions, and step-by-step instructions for common maintenance tasks.
• User manuals describe the application functionality as it is used by an end-user. These manuals contain step-by-step instructions on how to use the application, as well as descriptions of what should typically be entered into certain fields, or what to do if there is an error.

Manuals andStandard Operating Procedures

Manuals should not be seen as a replacement for SOPs, but as input into the SOPs.

SOPs should contain all aspects of applications that need to be managed as part of standard operations. If they are not extracted from the manuals, there is a high likelihood that they will be ignored or performed in a non-standard manner. Application Management should ensure that any such instructions are extracted from the manuals and inserted into separate SOP documentation for Operations. It is also responsible for ensuring that these instructions are updated with every change or new release of the software.

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 938