One-Stop Shopping
Lately, Tempting customers with the powerful phrase “buy one, get one free” isn’t only a strategy used to get shoppers to fill their carts. As creative and marketing solutions lengthen the list of print providers’ expected offerings, adding value is invaluable—no matter where one stands in the supply chain. In turn, the increasing demand for services means more automation, a flood of sophisticated workflow and management programs and plenty of features to handle the inevitable ensuing changes.
For service providers such as the document management solutions market, the definition of “added value” has expanded to include seamless integration, security, flexibility and—much like the services now crowding under the print provider umbrella—one-stop-shop functionality. The following products are examples of the healthy competition alive and well in the solutions marketplace.
Operation Workflow
At On Demand 2007, Ramsey, New Jersey-based Konica Minolta debuted Printgroove, a workflow system built for small to mid-sized print shops and print production.
The system consists of separate modules, allowing particular shops to maximize the software’s capabilities to meet their specific needs. Available modules include Printgroove Serve, which handles customer requests online, including requirements, ticketing and tracking solutions; Printgroove Guide, which manages job trafficking and monitors equipment status; and Printgroove Queue, which assigns print jobs and also manages job volume and multiple bizhub PRO machines.
“Printgroove is an intuitive and powerful job workflow solution that’s affordable, easy to use and fits hand-in-glove with our MFPs [multifunction peripherals],” noted Kevin P. Kern, vice president, product planning and development, Konica Minolta Business Solutions USA. “Printgroove caters to the needs of bizhub PRO customers in the CRD [central reproduction department], in-plant, print-for-pay, commercial printing and data center environments.”
For more information, visit www.sec.kmbs.us/version2/index.html.
Brain Food
Brainware, Ashburn, Va., has upgraded its IDC-distiller (intelligent data capture) document processing solution to version 4.0. The software is capable of capturing, classifying and extracting data from forms and files based on content from differing sources, rather than requiring a standardized format or template for readability. The software can also extract information from e-mails and attachments. According to the company, IDC-distiller can increase document processing speed by at least 60 percent.
In addition, IDC-distiller has recently integrated ABBYY FineReader Engine 8, which aids in converting images and scanned documents into text, features PDF conversion and pre-processes low-quality files for more effective readability.
“With these significant enhancements in version 4.0, and our ongoing development of intelligent data capture technologies, we are continuing to advance IDC-distiller as the leading solution for high-speed, high-volume and highly accurate document processing,” said CEO Carl Mergele.
For more information, visit www.brainware.com.
Do-It-Yourself
Optio Software, an automation, workflow and management solutions provider with headquarters in Alpharetta, Ga., has introduced Design Center and Document Server, a new document automation software suite. The Design Center allows users to customize documents and forms to be executed and distributed by Optio’s Document Server.
Based on customer preferences, Document Server transfers and distributes outgoing documents. As a suite, Design Center and Document Server provides all-around management of documents, from origination to end, and is also capable of customizing workflow processes.
“Design Center and Document Server take automated design, collaboration and distribution to the next level,” noted Chris Beecroft, general manager and senior vice president of enterprise sales and services. “Optio’s innovative, easy-to-use solutions enable customers to decrease costs by reducing errors and accelerating document-intensive business processes throughout the enterprise.”
For more information, visit www.optio.com.
Good iForm
RJS Software Systems, Burnsville, Minn., debuted iForms at the COMMON 2007 Conference & Expo in Anaheim, Calif. The application is built for IBM’s System i platform, and is used to produce both electronic forms and business reports from a wide variety of database sources. iForms also allows for varying output report types, including Excel, PDF and HTML.
“Our customers have been asking for native electronic forms generation and database report writing products for the past several years,” said RJS Software president Richard Schoen. “We’re delivering iForms because we’re seeing no new innovation in the electronic forms and reporting space for the iSeries.” (The iSeries is IBM’s mid-range server product line.)
For more information, visit www.rjssoftware.com.
Home Run
OnBase, an application developed by Hyland Software, Westlake, Ohio, is integrating with products from Lawson Software, located in St. Paul, Minn. Among other functions, OnBase features document management and imaging and workflow. Lawson Software provides software solutions for manufacturing and distribution, including supply chain management products. The OnBase/Lawson integration currently serves the healthcare and retail sectors, industries in which both OnBase and Lawson are popular.
“Our partnership will focus on solutions in multiple markets, including healthcare, manufacturing, retail, distribution and financial services,” said Scott Bruno, OnBase industry specialist, healthcare solutions. “The solutions will focus on extending the value of an organization’s Lawson investment by providing end-users the ability to ingest, retrieve and route documents using OnBase from Lawson user interfaces. This will, in turn, make Lawson users more efficient, and in some cases, end-user[s] won’t even realize they’re using OnBase.”
For more information, visit www.onbase.com or www.lawson.com.
Entrust Me
Entrust is a security solutions provider headquartered in Addison, Texas. To protect vulnerable network information, Entrust Entelligence Group Share automatically encrypts documents placed in protected folders. The program provides a range of authentication processes (including Windows), and does not disturb users’ work processes.
Other features include encryption that remains even if a file is moved or copied. Entrust Entelligence Group Share can monitor when, where and which employees access data stored on the network. It also stores decryption keys and folders on a central server, allowing permissions to change on protected folders without having to re-encrypt the files.
“While organizations have moved to secure laptop[s], backup tapes and USB drives, a commonly overlooked risk is the vulnerability of sensitive files being shared on the network for workgroups,” noted chairman, president and CEO Bill Conner. “The first generation of shared folder encryption products on the market were a bit clumsy, requiring the administrator to jump through hoops to manage permissions, and nearly impossible to audit. We are pleased to offer a security solution that provides the high manageability and an audit trail organizations need to effectively address this security gap and meet regulatory requirements.”
For more information, visit www.entrust.com.
- Companies:
- Optio Software