Procedures and user guides are sometimes mistakenly referred to as the same thing. They are not interchangeable terms, and although they complement each other, they have obvious differences and purposes. User guides are typically software-based, whereas procedures are employee based.
User guides are product documents that describe the overall features of a software package. The software vendor typically provides a user guide/user manual for their customers, which contains comprehensive information relating to the software’s features. The user guide communicates the software’s functionality to a wide range of customers and lists information that most companies only use a portion of.
Procedures are quality system documentation that is specific to the business and includes the organizational knowledge of how employees perform their job responsibilities. Procedures may only refer to a subset of the features listed in the user guide, depending upon the individual company’s needs. Also, procedures may contain instructions for using more than one software product and describe how employees can integrate multiple software applications to perform their job responsibilities.
What are their major differences?
| User Guides | Procedures |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
How are procedures and user guides related to each other?
A user guide provides the basis of information that business analysts use in developing procedures for software implementation. The user guide is the starting point for understanding how software package functions could address business requirements. The specific instructions on how to use the software features to fulfill the requirements are recorded in procedures The organizational knowledge software used as a quality system forprocedures makes the process knowledge of how and when to use the software more easily accessible to the user.
To sum it up, procedures are quality system documentation used for recording and communicating knowledge. In contrast, the user guide provides an information source for investigating approaches on how to use the software. They complement each other and are used side by side but have different functions.
