How do IT organizations ensure that compliance documentation remains up-to-date and accurate with DITA?

November 10, 2023
|By Bryan Tipper

Maintaining up-to-date and accurate compliance documentation in IT organizations is a crucial task. DITA provides a structured approach to help ensure that compliance documentation remains current and accurate. Here are some key strategies that IT organizations can employ to achieve this:

1. Version Control: IT organizations should implement version control systems to manage DITA documents. By maintaining different versions of documentation, you can track changes, review historical revisions, and ensure that the latest compliance requirements are reflected in the documentation.

2. Collaborative Workflows: DITA allows for collaborative authoring and review processes. IT teams can work together to keep documentation up-to-date by regularly reviewing and revising content. This collaborative approach ensures that multiple experts can contribute to maintaining accuracy.

3. Automation: Automation tools can assist in monitoring compliance changes and automatically updating related documentation. For example, if a regulatory authority releases updates to compliance standards (e.g., PCI DSS), automation can help identify changes and apply them to the relevant sections of documentation.

Example:

Here’s an example of a DITA topic that demonstrates version control in a compliance document:


<!-- Compliance Documentation Example -->
<topic id="pci-dss-compliance">
  <title>PCI DSS Compliance</title>
  <body>
    <p>This document outlines our organization's compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).</p>
    <section conkeyref="version-control"/>
    <section conkeyref="collaborative-workflow"/>
    <section conkeyref="automation"/>
  </body>
</topic>

In this example, the DITA topic contains sections that link to specific aspects of maintaining compliance documentation, including version control, collaborative workflows, and automation strategies.