When the parachute section of the Norwegian Air Sports Federation (Norges luftsportforbund or NLF) needed to replace its PDF-based handbooks, they chose the Readin document portal. Now, skydivers and instructors can read user manuals and regulations on their mobile phones, tablets, and computers. An important and useful user feature is receiving notifications when a document they follow is updated.
NLF is a national association for air sports activities. Among the largest subgroups, we find skydiving (F/NLF). The skydiving section coordinates the training and education of skydivers and instructors.
Introduction
The parachute section publishes and maintains a handbook for skydiving. The purpose of the handbook is to announce to all stakeholders the rules and regulations that always apply to F/NLF's activities regarding safety, equipment, and education. The handbook complies with the obligations that F/NLF has towards Norwegian authorities and as a member of national and international organizations.
Challenge
Skydiving requires that participants and instructors always are familiar with the applicable guidelines and regulations. The handbook plays a central role in this.
Until recently, the handbook was available as PDF documents on F/NLF's website. The user experience was limited, and the solution was not mobile and tablet friendly. Updating and revising the documents that make up the handbook required more than just focusing on the content. It also involved creating PDFs of the documents and manually uploading them to the website.
“Readin document portal makes it easier and more inviting to understand and navigate to our regulations. This applies to both less experienced individuals who need to read for their theory exams, and to more experienced individuals, such as instructors, who use it as a reference.”
Knut Lien, F/NLF
Solution
F/NLF saw significant opportunities to streamline the document process and offer users a better and more accessible reading experience. They realized that by choosing Readin as their document portal, they could replace the previous PDF-based solution with a modern web-based system.
F/NLF uses Microsoft Word as the writing tool for all the handbooks. SharePoint is used to manage the Word documents. With the Readin SharePoint extension, they can publish Word documents to the web with a single click. The integration allows authors to preview the documents they are working on to see how the Word document will appear on the web.
The user experience is boosted by various features, such as cross-document search, adding comments, creating bookmarks, receiving update notifications, revision history, and more. A specific feature for revision comments from readers to document owners helps to ensure that the content can maintains a high level of quality. Users can read the content equally well on mobile phones, tablets, and computers.
Users have a "My Page" that provides an overview of comments, bookmarks, recently read documents, and updates for the documents they follow.
Readin is a document portal operated as a SaaS solution, eliminating the need for in-house operations and support personnel.
Result
By implementing Readin Document Portal, F/NLF has achieved several benefits, including faster and more efficient document publishing and an improved user experience for readers.
- Updates and new documents are released more quickly.
- Users are notified when a document they follow is updated.
- Handbooks can now be read on mobile phones and tablets, in addition to computers.
- Users can search across all documents in the document portal.
- Users can be confident they are reading the latest version of the handbook.
If you are curious about whether Readin is the right choice for your company, please feel free to contact us for a discussion and an online demonstration of all the advantages of Readin.