7 necessities for structured component authoring, part 2

For Life Sciences organizations, the medical authoring process requires agility to comply with complex documentation requirements. From dozens of authors and strict regulations to multiple review cycles, you need a solution that moves with your projects — a flexibility that might be missing if you still depend on programs like Microsoft Word for your content development and publication.

Why does my organization need SCA?

The documentation process can be long, cumbersome, and involve many different contributors. Structured component authoring (SCA) is one solution for an otherwise unconnected and inefficient publishing process.

With the right SaaS SCA platform, you can expect:

• Reusing approved content to build new documents
• Improved auditing capabilities
• Approved content that gets locked into place
• Less time spent searching for specific content

If your organization is looking for a better way to do documentation, SCA could be the missing tool in your process — so long as you select the best solution.

What should I look for in SCA?

When evaluating your options, we’ve curated a list of what to look for in SCA to ensure you find a solution that works for your organization.

Read on for part two (and if you need a refresh, here is part 1).

1. Reliability

   You want to trust that your SCA system is reliable and can sustain adverse IT events — and day-to-day operations. Unlike desktop publishing tools, a SaaS solution is always up, always running and always accessible from anywhere.

2. Compliance

   For Life Sciences documentation, adhering to regulations is table stakes. When evaluating SCA options, ensure that compliance and quality management is simplified through validation and release processes, incident management capabilities, and audit trails.

3. Use of legacy content

   Content undergoes a lot to get to a state of approval — so you want to use it (again and again) once it’s ready. Reusing approved content is critical to achieving a fast ROI, an absolute must for your SCA solution.

4. Proven engagement model

   How many times has a tool promised to be the answer to all the problems only to be ignored, passed over for other options, and left to take up space on the server? When choosing an SCA solution, your adoption plan should minimize the risks of transitioning to a new technology.

5. Training and support

   Once the final check is signed, many vendors vanish, leaving IT to handle getting everyone up to speed without additional support. Your organization deserves comprehensive implementation training, ongoing support and a hyper care period to ensure success.

6. References

   Just as you wouldn’t fill an important role without checking a candidate’s referral source, make sure to validate your SCA selection based on Life Sciences references.

7. Proven results

   Your solution should have solid examples of implementations within specific Life Sciences use cases that demonstrate high levels of adoption (hundreds of users), strong reuse (70–80%), and significant ROI.

If you missed our first installment of 7 necessities for SCA, check out this infographic for the complete checklist.

Docuvera: SCA created with the Life Sciences industry in mind

All SCA is not created equal. The drug development documentation process requires tools designed specifically with the Life Sciences industry in mind. Our SaaS SCA solution can help authors and reviewers to get on the same platform — and on the same page.

Docuvera helps medical authors with an efficient way to create, review and publish Life Sciences documentation. Schedule a demo today to learn how Docuvera can boost content authoring for your organization.