Checklist
The S1000D Program Start Checklist
Twenty decisions, four phases, in the order they should be made. Programs that settle these before authoring spend their budget on content; programs that don't meet every one of them again at delivery review prices. Print this page and work through it.
The Checklist
Twenty Decisions, In Order
Contract & Governance
- The contracted S1000D issue is confirmed in writing. Issues 4.1, 4.2, 5.0 and 6 are all in active use — and with Issue 7 now released, the gap between newest and contracted just widened. Authoring to the wrong issue produces data the program cannot accept.
- The business rules layer is identified, and you hold a copy. ATA Spec 1000BR, MIL-STD-3031, MIL-STD-3048, or program-specific rules — the rules define most of what compliance means.
- Business rules will be captured as BREX, not only as a document. Rules enforced at authoring time are configuration; rules in a PDF are advice that gets discovered broken at delivery review.
- Every delivery obligation is enumerated. Page-based, IETP, portal, raw data exchange — each output owed shapes authoring decisions made months earlier.
- You know who accepts the data, and against what. Schema validation, BREX conformance, and editorial review are different gates; find out which ones your customer runs.
Data Architecture
- The SNS is agreed — with engineering in the room. The Standard Numbering System is the product breakdown every Data Module Code will encode; retrofitting it means renumbering the library.
- DMC conventions are settled and written down. The business rules constrain the code's fields, but conventions within them are the program's to fix — once, early.
- The DMRL exists and has a named owner. The Data Module Requirements List turns scope into a count. Without it, the estimate is a guess and progress is an opinion.
- The applicability strategy is decided. Which configurations drive filtering, and how they are modeled — solved with copies instead, the library diverges by the first revision.
- Common and repeated information has a reuse plan. Warnings, cautions, and shared data that every module needs are the first content to fragment when each author recreates them.
- Illustration and ICN conventions are set. Graphics carry their own identifiers and revision life; treating them as attachments loses both.
Production Readiness
- The CSDB has an owner, a workflow, and a backup regime. It is an operational system, not a license — the program's single source deserves the care given to any production database.
- The authoring environment enforces the BREX. This is where non-compliant content is cheapest to catch: at the keystroke, not at the delivery review.
- A publish-early milestone is on the schedule. The first PDF or IETP built from real data modules surfaces integration problems while they are still cheap to fix.
- Legacy conversion was sampled before it was priced. The bulk converts predictably; the exception structures set the budget, and they only show up in a real sample.
- QA gates are defined per stage, not saved for the end. Content that fails validation at delivery was authored weeks earlier, by someone who has moved on.
Supply Chain & People
- Supplier data conventions are agreed before suppliers author. Two compliant suppliers can still deliver data you cannot combine; the rules have to reach the whole chain.
- Training is planned per role, not per license. Authors, illustrators, managers, and reviewers need different depths — and the program needs them before content volume arrives.
- The revision and change process is defined up front. S1000D content lives as data through sustainment; how a change enters, routes, and republishes is program infrastructure.
- One named authority answers business-rules questions. Every unanswered rules question becomes an author's improvisation, and improvisations compound.
The reasoning behind the sequence lives on our S1000D reference page — and if the contract behind your program is still being read, start with the TM contract review checklist, because half the items above are answered there.
Get In Touch
Boxes You Can't Tick?
Every unticked item is a decision waiting to cost more later. We help programs settle them in weeks — bring us the list with the gaps showing.