Prerequisites

Prerequisites are guides that contain instructions for one part of a process. For example, let's say that you have two work processes to perform. One is replacing the Home Button on your iPhone 5c, and the other is replacing the front-facing camera, microphone, and sensor cable assembly.

Both of these processes require you to take off the front panel assembly of the iPhone. Instead of rewriting the instructions for removing the front panel assembly of the iPhone, you can create one guide, a prerequisite guide, on this process and link it to both of these processes.

How to Add Prerequisite Guides

As the name implies, prerequisites are often used to import the steps from another guide that occur at the beginning of the new guide that you are creating or editing. This method is particularly helpful for introductory procedures, safety protocols, or the beginning stages of multiple procedures.

Additionally, prerequisites save time in document maintenance. Update your Prerequisite Guide and see the changes that take place across ALL other guides using it as a prerequisite. No more updating the same information across multiple documents!

**Important Note**: Guides must be published and given a release version title before they can be used as a prerequisite guide.

If many of your guides, procedures, or work instructions include identical steps or sub-procedures, use the prerequisite guide tool to create more modular content that saves you a ton of time and effort.

The first step is outlining all of your procedures with repeatable steps or sub-procedures. Next, define the unique vs. repeatable sections of these processes. Then you create individual guides for each of these sections; these will be your Guide Modules. Depending on your procedures, they may be as short as a single step or have several steps.

To keep these guide modules separate from other guides in the same Category, consider adding the "Prerequisite Only" flag. For more information, see the corresponding section below.

Now, you can create your first "Container Guide" which imports the steps from all of your prerequisite Guide Modules.

Here is an example:

Prerequisite Guide List for a Container Guide

Perhaps your next module will use both the first and third prerequisites from this guide, but the second is slightly different. In this instance, you need to use a different unique prerequisite guide module for your next Container Guide:

Prerequisite Guide List for a Second Container Guide

As mentioned above, updating a prerequisite guide module also updates ALL other guides using that prerequisite. This saves you time and effort when maintaining and updating your procedures. Creating and maintaining modular processes in this manner creates a Dynamic Work Instruction flow across all of the content on your site.

Once you have added prerequisite guides, you can also choose to import all of the tools used for every prerequisite you added:

To sort and display the guides used as Prerequisites separately from the other guides within the same category, use the "Prerequisite Only" flag. This flag appears at the top of the guide to warn viewers:

Flagging a Public guide as a "Prerequisite Only" also moves the guide to a separate section on the Category page:

Prerequisite Only Guide Section

Furthermore, this flag also sets the Privacy of the guide to Private. Even though the Prerequisite guide is marked as Public in the Editing interface, the "Prerequisite Only" flag hides the Prerequisite guide from standard users viewing your site.

To view a list of all guides used as prerequisites on your site, navigate to your Timeline in your Management Console. Select the "Prerequisite Guides" filter option on the Guides page. You will see a list of all guides used a prerequisites on your site.

You can click on a prerequisite guide to see more information about that guide, including a list of guides that use it as a prerequisite.