Prerequisites

Curious about why you should use prerequisites in your work instructions? This page teaches you the benefits of using prerequisites and how you can create modular content and dynamic work instructions.

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How to get prerequisite guide steps inside a prerequisite guide?

I have a guide (of a general process) that has a couple of prerequisite guides at the start. I am trying to include this general process guide as a prerequisite for another build guide. However, the prerequisite steps of the general process don’t appear when in the top-level build guide (but they do in the general process guide). How can I get them too?

  • Top Level Guide
    • General Process Guide
      • Prerequisite 1
      • Prerequisite 2

One method would be to include the prerequisite guides of the low-level general process guides as prerequisite guides of the top-level but this would remove the great advantage of modularity. I would like the general process guide to be included in many top-level guides. The idea was that any changes to the low-level prerequisite would filter to all top-level guides.

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Hi Matthew,

Thank you for your question! If you add a guide with its own prerequisites as a prerequisite to another guide, you will have the option to add that guide’s prerequisites as well, so what you’re asking is possible.

Have you published a new release of your General Process Guide since you added the prerequisites to it? Whenever a guide references another as a prerequisite guide, it will only use the most current release and ignores drafts. If the General Process Guide only includes prerequisites in the draft, those prerequisites will not be carried on to your Top Level Guide.

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Yes, all the guides have been released and are at the latest version. The only step that is appearing at the top level is the step of the general process guide, not the low-level prerequisite. Is this addition automatic or do I have to enable/include them (like including the tools/parts)?

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If you add a guide with prerequisites to another guide as a prerequisite, you should see a modal window with the option to include that guide's prerequisite guides when adding it.

However, if you added the General Process Guide as a prerequisite before adding prerequisites to it, those will not automatically carry over to the Top Level Guide. This can be remedied by removing the General Process guide as a prerequisite and adding it back, which will trigger the option to add its prerequisites to the Top Level Guide as well.

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@maxfishman Re-adding the General Process guide as a prerequisite showed the modal window, thanks!

Does this mean if I add another prerequisite guide to the General Process guide I will need to remove and re-add it again to pull the new prerequisite guide to the top level?

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You're very welcome @marmstrong !

Yes, that is correct. The expectation and design is that each prerequisite needs to be voluntarily added to the container (top level) guide. When you import a prerequisite guide with its own prerequisites, you choose whether or not to import all of the other prerequisites as the guide author.

The concern with adding new prerequisites automatically up the chain to the top level guide, the author of the top level guide doesn't have control of which prerequisites make up their guide. But that also means that you can simply add the new prerequisites directly to each top level guide without having to remove and re-add the general process guide.

If you haven't already, check out the prerequisite guide manager: How to Locate Prerequisite Guides

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Author avatar Matthew Armstrong will be eternally grateful.
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