Case study · Documentation
Citations Training Guide
Fifty-odd listing platforms, two divisions that do the same job with different tooling, and rules that only made sense once somebody explained them. All of it lived in people's heads, which meant every new starter learned it by interrupting someone.
Sample only — anonymised, links inert, procedure detail removed
The guide is one HTML file: sixteen sections, a searchable index, a twenty-term glossary and eleven answered questions. No build step, no framework, no external requests — it opens from a folder and works offline, which matters when the person who needs it is mid-task.
What follows is a rebuilt sample. Four sections of sixteen, with the actual procedures taken out and every internal link, tracker and credential removed. The real thing points at live spreadsheets and a shared login; none of that belongs on a public page.
01 — What it holds
Two divisions run the same workstream through different tooling, and a third path exists for one client whose work is per-practitioner rather than per-location. The guide keeps them as separate tracks rather than one merged procedure with exceptions bolted on, because a merged procedure is how people end up applying the wrong one.
02 — Four sections of sixteen
Home Both divisions
The trackers and folders you open every day, one click from wherever you are.
Trackers
In the real guide each card is a live link to an internal tracker. Removed here, along with the shared login the subtitle used to name.
Cleanup tasks Recurring
The monthly pass. Only the flagged items get re-checked — re-auditing every platform from scratch each month is how the work stops being finishable.
- Work the pending items only. Anything already marked correct stays untouched until something changes upstream.
- Check the aggregators first. They feed dozens of downstream directories, so fixing one of them fixes many listings at once — and fixing a downstream listing while its source is still wrong just gets overwritten.
- Escalate what has been waiting. A request pending three to four months is a blocker, not a queue item, and needs naming to the person who can unblock it.
Three of a longer sequence. The per-platform steps, the ticket wording and the escalation routing are the parts that actually belong to the agency, so they are not reproduced.
Publishers Both divisions
Sorted by who can actually change the listing. That is the distinction that decides what you do next, and it is not the one most directory lists are organised around.
Pushed automatically
Fed from the listings platform. Don't edit by hand — a manual change gets overwritten on the next sync.
Editable directly
Claimable with the right account. Fastest to fix, and the ones worth doing first when a client is waiting on visible progress.
Only fixable through support
No self-serve edit. Someone has to write to a support team and wait, so these get started early rather than left to the end of a cleanup.
Platform names are public directories. The account setup, verification windows and per-platform quirks that sit behind each one are removed.
FAQ Both divisions
Real questions from onboarding, written down the first time they were asked — which is the only reason the guide stayed current.
Why is a listing correct on the site but wrong in a directory?
Usually because the directory is fed from an aggregator rather than from the site, so the fix belongs upstream. Correcting the visible listing without correcting its source means it reverts, and the next person to check assumes nobody did the work.
The phone number differs between the website and a directory. Is that an error?
Usually not. Directories often carry a separate tracking number by design. What is worth flagging is one label resolving to two different numbers on the same page, or an area code that doesn't match the office's city.
A login stopped working. What now?
Reopen the request for that platform, note the date it stopped, and leave the previous history in place. The exception is a listing created with the client's own domain email, which doesn't need a fresh request.
Three of eleven. The rest name internal tools, accounts and client-specific handling, so they are left out.
Rebuilt as a mockup — not a copy of the internal file. No client is named and no link resolves.
03 — What writing it taught
Organise by who can fix it
Most directory lists are alphabetical, or grouped by how important the site is. Neither tells you what to do. Sorting by whether a listing is pushed automatically, editable directly, or only fixable through a support team answers the actual question — and turns fifty platforms into three behaviours to learn.
Write it the first time it's asked
The FAQ exists because the same questions came up in onboarding and got answered in chat, where the answer helps one person once. Writing them down as they arrived is why the guide covers what people actually get stuck on rather than what seemed important in advance.
One file, no build step
It gets opened mid-task by someone who needs one answer. A hosted app would need an account, a login and a working connection; a single HTML file needs a double-click. The constraint kept it usable and made it trivial to hand over.