Structuring user manual – maps and conrefs

[Anna]

I have experience of working with xml, but am quite new to DITA. We're using XMetaL 6 + Documentum.
For 400 page user manuals, published only as online help, what would you suggest:

Presently there is one map for the manual, one map per “Chapter” (we don't use bookmap chapters), and topics for all subchapters.

Would it be wiser to have many hierarchical levels with maps for the subchapters? (User manual-map/ Maintenance-map/ Daily maintenance-map/ Reboot of the instrument – topic.)

Also, I wonder where to place the source of the conrefs. For example, if I would like to have the product name as a conref, do I place that phrase in a separate topic directly beneath the User Manual map, or do I need to include it in every map in the User Manual? Although we don't publish pdf, I'd like to be able to generate pdf's of individual maps during the writing process, without crashing the pdf due to broken conref links.

Thanks in advance for your help!

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