'Filtering' a Word Document

[Andag]

Hi All,



I hope my message finds you well!

I am a HR Process Consultant currently working on a template for Work Instructions. These will be word documents, providing direction to HR professionals in the company on how to execute processes.

There will be one document to accommodate requirements from different countries and legal entities. This means that each process step will contain some general global information and then will deep-dive into process localisations.

Due to the volume of localisations, the document becomes long, not user friendly and somewhat confusing. It would be a lot more helpful if there was a way for users to filter on the information they are looking for, e.g. US only or Legal Entity X, and access only the global information and the info they want.

Each step of the document consists of a Word table, which is split in two columns and multiple rows. Each row includes either a step or a localisation. The left column includes a summary of the content of the row, for example 'fill in form X' or 'UK localisation'. The right column includes the actual content, for example detailed steps to fill in form X.

Could you please advise on the following:

- Is there a way to filter the whole document in order to see only the required info? For example, filter by US and see the Global and US rows of all tables in the document and no rows for other countries.

- If this is not feasible, what is the closest alternative?

- If you suggest a solution, could you please advise how much effort would it take to implement in a 20 page document with around 10 steps (10 tables), so that I can estimate time required?

Any advice would be really appreciated! Thanks a lot in advance


Kind regards,
Andy

[Guessed]

There isn't a built-in method to do the 'filtering' you describe but it can be done with macros that set sections to be hidden. The trick is working out how to organise and tag the content to be hidden in specific cases. Your two choices for tagging areas are bookmarks or Content Controls.

To quote on how long it would take is tricky without seeing the content and what you want done but someone who knows what they are doing could achieve a workable result in a couple of hours. The tabular layout might add time to this since it complicates the layout but samples would need to be seen to assess how much effort is required. Also the number of variants will impact the time taken to develop.

[Andag]

Hi Andrew,

Thank you for the information.

Just to confirm that my understanding is correct, the work required is as below:

- tag rows with non-global content using Bookmarks or Content Controls
- develop a macro which will enable the user select content

You said that the tabular layout makes the above more complicated. Would organising the content in less rows, for example having global and local content around a step in one row as opposed to using different rows for each country, make this process simpler and less time-consuming?

Unfortunately, I believe the forum functionality does not support image uploading -correct me if I am wrong, but I can provide more detailed information:

- We would need 4 variables in each document
- Each document contains around 10 different instructions and each instruction contains 4 pieces of content that would need to be tagged

Are you confident that approximately 2 hours would suffice per document for the end-to-end process, i.e. tagging and developing the macro?

Again, thanks a lot for your help!


Kind regards,
Andy

[Guessed]

Yes, that is pretty much it as far as the core functionality. The trick is making sure that the content is tagged so your macro can identify the bits to hide. The macros also need to enforce some background options so 'hidden' text is not visible on screen or in prints. Layout is relevant because it is easy to hide an entire row of a table but hiding one cell doesn't collapse the rest of the row so you might end up with empty cells.

The first document is the hard one to setup. Once you have the macros sorted, the other docs really only need the tagging part done to them. Your tagging business rules need to be clear and consistent and you'll need to avoid overlapping options to keep it simple.

As I said, you would need to provide a sample to get a more accurate estimate. To get a sample doc publicly available, you will have to load your file to a shared drive like dropbox and post a link here. A quick and dirty job would be easily do-able in 2 hours but there are likely to be other considerations for a professional completed job. These optional extras would all add on top of that time.

You need to consider how to roll this out to users - eg. do you need training or written instructions? Since macros would be required, the document/template would need to be ALLOWED to run macros and may also require buttons on the ribbon to enable selection of the relevant choices more easily. How does the template become available to staff? A CM system like Sharepoint is good for making the template available for download but drastically interferes with how Word behaves as a template (and whether macros can be run easily).