The Subject Matter Expert holds the domain knowledge: the scientist, engineer, clinician, regulator or lawyer who actually writes the content. Not a technical writer, and will not learn an XML editor. DitaExchange keeps them in Microsoft Word.
The SME shows up on both sides of the regulatory chain. The role is the same. The tooling should be the same too.
At EASA, the rulemaking officers who draft European aviation regulations work in Microsoft Word, the same Microsoft 365 environment they use for every other document. DxAuthor+ adds the DITA structure behind the scenes. The rules land as components in Dx5 inside SharePoint, where they are versioned, approved, and published as the Easy Access Rules format used across European aviation since 2018.
Customer since 2018 · Microsoft Word · Microsoft SharePoint
At GKN Fokker, the maintenance engineers writing the inspection procedures that comply with those EASA rules use the same DitaExchange platform. Same Word interface. Same SharePoint substrate. Different content. Same regulatory chain. The component model that holds the rule on the upstream side holds the procedure that implements it on the downstream side.
Aerospace prime · Microsoft Word · Microsoft SharePoint
Same product, two ends of the chain. DitaExchange is the only CCMS whose customer book sits on both sides of the regulatory chain at the same time.
Every vendor solves the back-end problem: components, content references, profiling, audit trail. Most solve the SME problem by ignoring it, shipping an XML editor and assuming the experts will migrate. They will not. SMEs author a few hours a year as a fraction of the day job.
The effect is a two-tier system: the tech-comm team authors in the new editor, everyone else keeps emailing Word files. The source content never enters the system, so the regulatory benefit never arrives.
DxAuthor+ (the Word add-in) is where the SME lives. Dx5 in SharePoint is where the content lives. The author rarely sees the second one. That separation is the entire point.
| What changes | How |
|---|---|
| Stay in Microsoft Word | DxAuthor+ runs in the Word the SME already uses, desktop or web. The Insert link, tag picker, and topic search panes dock alongside the document. The DITA structure is applied behind the scenes. |
| Stop being the bottleneck | Real-time co-authoring through Microsoft 365. Editors and reviewers operate on the same document, the same way they do on every other Office file in the tenant. No separate review inbox to chase. |
| Do not break the next person's review | Role-based modes: editors see the editing tools; reviewers see a clean, read-only view. The SME cannot inadvertently change the structure that the downstream workflow depends on. |
| Get back to the day job | No XML to learn, no second tool to maintain, no separate identity to manage. Single sign-on through Microsoft Entra ID; the same SharePoint permissions the customer's IT department already operates. |
| Author once. Refresh everywhere | Cross-topic links and content references resolve at assembly time. The approved paragraph the SME wrote once shows up in every document that needs it, and is refreshed automatically when the source changes. |
DitaExchange supports SMEs across the regulatory chain. The job titles vary by sector; the role-type is the same.
Medical-device regulatory affairs. At MagVenture, drafting labeling, IFUs and submission content.
Disclosure specialists. At LSEG, drafting controlled-publishing content across regulatory filings.
Aerospace engineers. At Lockheed Martin and GKN Fokker, writing maintenance and inspection procedures that comply with EASA and FAA rules.
Rule authors and safety officers. At EASA and the European Defence Agency, drafting the rules everyone downstream has to comply with.
Safety analysts. At the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, writing licensing dossiers and regulatory content.
Industrial-product specialists. At Grundfos, writing installation, operation and maintenance documentation for product families.
Different sectors, different content, different stakes. Same role-type. Same authoring problem. Same answer.
An administrator maintains the tag vocabularies in the SharePoint Term Store, so the list you pick from is the organization's rather than one you invent. The taxonomies cover dimensions like audience type, business process, customer, guide and importance, plus whatever else the organization keeps. Picking the right tags is what makes the topic findable three months later and what makes the where-used report accurate.
That fraction is the reason the authoring surface is Microsoft Word rather than a dedicated editor. Most subject matter experts write somewhere between five and fifty hours of content a year, which is never enough to justify learning a second tool. The alternative is that the source content stays outside the system and arrives by email, which is where the version history and the approval record stop.
Only if you want to. What DxAuthor+ writes is standard DITA XML, stored inside SharePoint, and the pane you work in sits beside the document in Word. Nothing about writing, tagging or linking requires reading the markup. The reason to care that it is standard DITA is a different one: it is what lets any DITA-compliant tool read the same content later.
The insert dialog searches SharePoint from inside Word and shows a preview of each result, so you confirm the right topic before inserting anything. You can also paste a link directly when you already know the topic. What lands in your document is a reference rather than a copy, so the wording stays the approved wording and refreshes when the source changes.
They have to become components, which is real work rather than a copy into a library. DxMigrationTool captures the metadata on the way in, aligns the styling to the target model, repoints references that used to name a page or a file, and splits the document into topics. Which set goes first and how it splits are decisions people make; the tool applies them.
Most rollouts begin with the SME group where the opportunity is largest and the resistance to a new tool is highest. Authoring in Word removes the adoption barrier on day one, and the model compounds from there.
