Unit testing in a team

A process where multiple authors are working on a large repository of topics can make it difficult to manage the quality and consistency of the content. Unit testing is a technique to identify validation errors earlier in the documentation process.

When a team of authors is working on the same collection of topics, particularly when the collection is very large, it is sometimes difficult to identify a problem with the build. For example, a topic referenced in the master ditamap may be invalid; finding that invalid topic in a large collection will be difficult.

Some information architects provide each author with a ditamap of that author's topics. Before the author submits the final set of topics, the ditamap must successfully and cleanly build as a unit. The author's ditamap can be discarded after testing if it is not otherwise used for publishing.

This unit testing approach allows any issues to be addressed in a smaller, quicker to build, environment.