Business processes are getting increasingly more complex. To help people perform processes correctly we often resort to training or providing some type of reference material. that’s typically on the corporate intranet. Since the processes are often governed by a complex set of rules a person must read and remember all the different conditions and rules that must be applied to a process. If the process is complicated and not performed very often, the error rate goes up along with the number of support calls.

This article presents a technique that uses a jQuery function to enable process experts to create decision guide or trouble shooter by simply entering information in an HTML table using a visual web page editor. When the page is viewed, the jQuery script reads the table and presents the first question along with the options.

When a person clicks an option/answer, the script finds and presents the next question. This continues until the final answer is found. Each question is displayed below the previous question so a person can see the flow of questions and quickly take another course by skipping back to the first or any previous question.

Here is what the table might look like.

# Question/Heading Options/Answer
1 What’s wrong with the printer
It does not print
It prints but the text is too light
The paper is crimpled
It doesn’t print the whole document
2 Does the printer make any noise?
It does not make any noise
It makes a loud and unusual noise
It makes the normal noise
3 How light is the print?
It’s not readable
The colors aren’t right
It’s readable but not as dark as expected
4 The printer needs to be replaced. Follow these procedures for requesting a replacement printer.

The first column contains unique number from 1 to whatever is required. The second column contains the questions or a heading for a final answer. The 3rd column contains a bullet list of options for each question or the final answer. Each of the options in the bullet list has an id attribute that matches the number of the table row that’s presented when the bullet item is clicked. The HTML would be

  • The paper is crimpled

    • . Since many visual editors allow authors to add attribute values it would not be necessary for an author to view the HTML code.

    View example

    To utilize the script you need to:

    Add a link to the jQuery js file
    Copy and paste the function and css from the example page
    Add a table with id=”questions” in the table tag.
    Have an expert enter the questions and answers.
    Including an “Don’t know” or “Not sure” option/answer with each question provides an opportunity to present information about how to find an answer to a question.

    This electronic performance support system (EPSS) can help you to reduce process errors, improve service, and reduce support calls.