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Business Summary: THE NEED FOR OPTIMIZED OUTPUT FROM YOUR MFG/PRO APPLICATION
There are billions of production documents and reports generated every day by the MFG/PRO Application...invoices, purchase orders, sales reports, picking or packing slips, checks, bills of lading, reports, export documents and others. These documents represent the backbone in which your organization and your customers, vendors and business partners act and interact. In today era of mass customization, creating and s distributing information based on the needs of your customers, suppliers, and other internal users is imperative to business competitiveness. Making that interaction as smooth, efficient and productive as possible has become a fundamental imperative of business survival. In addition, having the flexibility to respond to constant changes in market demand, at a moments notice is required. Squinting in the dim light of a dark warehouse to verify part numbers printed in a 10-point typeface makes order-picking inefficient and error prone. And because the information is static and not based on user needs, it employs the user to create and distribute documents manually. Having to manually select and complete export documentation to accompany an international order is cumbersome, time-consuming, inefficient and error prone. Yet these are typical daily challenges of MFG/PRO-based organizations. Users of MFG/PRO have concerns that their output documents are too generic and inflexible to meet their needs. Having the lack of ability to customize their information for internal departments, vendors, customers and business partners hinders their goal of total customer intimacy. Enterprises are forced to cope with a plethora of processes and resource constraints to generate the dynamic output needed. MFG/PRO users must produce documents of printed output in some form or another. You need to be able to customize the format of the data content of some documents, and can benefit from the significant cost savings of the following three items: eliminating the custom programming requirements to make form-data formatting changes, eliminating the need for pre-printed forms, and eliminating the manual distribution of documents once they are produced. In a generic approach to output customization, custom programming is required. Every IT department plans and budgets for custom modification but it is increasingly becoming a major and growing line item. Custom programming requires an expensive commitment to ongoing support and enhancements, and may even affect your organization ability to receive s standard technical support. Further, custom modifications to packaged application software are, by definition, recurring expenses. Upgrades to new vendor releases inevitably lead to re-investment in the same modifications of the latest release. In addition, most IT departments have a full schedule and the time it takes to make modifications to the application are timely and may still not support the required specifications originally needed.
Once the content and the style of the document have been created, documents can be distributed to any network addressable postscript, thermal barcode, or PCL printers. Additional versions of the document can be written to a file, COLD storage devices, imaging systems, passed to SMTP compatible e-mail systems, or faxed via OptioFAX, Optio high-performance client-server fax s software. This process will take place whether the print job contains print output for multiple transactions, or if the print job contains output to be printed for a single transaction. The process of capturing the standard MFG/PRO spool-file or print stream and reformatting it and then sending it onto the desired print or output destination(s) is transparent to the end-user who originally launched the print job from MFG/PRO. Optio ODBC Solution provides the customer s access to their MFG/PRO databases from within Optio Document Customization Language (DCL). Customer can write statements that will retrieve information from the database, that may not be contained in the application output.
Figure 1
Figure 1 shows an example of standard output from MFG/PRO. It is easy to see that the output is generic, and does not meet the needs of your enterprise, and most importantly the customer.
Integration of Optio and QAD applications is achievable even if both applications were installed and deployed separately. Both OptioDCS and QAD MFG/PRO can be installed on the same s server. They may also be installed on separate servers provided that the QAD applications server recognizes the machine that the Optio software is installed on as a printer through a TCP/IP network configuration. The only visible integration of OptioDCS with MFG/PRO, is the addition of an Optio printer in the Printer Setup Maintenance of MFG/PRO. This printer would be setup to use a blank Printer Type, and would simply point to the shared Optio printer on the Optio Document Customization Server.
Figure 2
Figure 2 shows the setup requirements for an Optio printer from within MFG/PRO. You can see that the only requirements for this integration is the pathname of the virtual printer on the OptioDCS, and there is no required settings for the printer, such as control settings that are normally required for printers such as laser or thermal printers. This reduces the complexity of adding printers in MFG/PRO, as well as problems when changing printers on your network.
The end result is dynamic control over document parameters without the need to modify QAD applications; elimination of pre-printed forms; elimination of the manual distribution of critical business documents; and a reduced work load to customize the MFG/PRO application for forms-data formatting changes during implementation.
CREATING CUSTOMIZED MISSION CRITICAL DOCUMENTS FROM QAD APPLICATIONS: CHECKS, PURCHASE ORDERS, INVOICES AND BILLS OF LADING
The following sample documents illustrate the power and sophistication of OptioDCS in a real business environment. Using three mission-critical business documents you use every day as examples checks, purchase orders, invoices and bills of lading-- we will show you how Optio s technology will benefit you in achieving optimal output from your QAD applications without custom programming. The following OptioDCS features were used to create these dynamic business and production documents.
OptioDCS improves productivity and lowers costs, providing you with greater flexibility and security when you need it most. Through spool data mapping support, it enables you to reformat the layout of your application data, conditionally change checks and modify font style and size, so you control exactly how your printed output appears. OptioDCS enables you to print for multiple accounts, so you can change accounts without changing check stock.
PAGE COMPRESSION
OptioDCS supports page compression, or condensing a lengthy document into a shorter, more compressed version without loosing any of the information. For example, with page compression you can reformat a document that was originally 4 or 5 pages long into a document that is only 2 pages long. In our sample, the original MFG/PRO purchase order allowed for only 3 or 4 line items on a page, because it was programmed to fit a static format. OptioDCS will automatically place the maximum number of lines on a page. Additionally, these documents will never break a line item in the middle-for example, if there is not room for it on page one, the entire line item will print on page 2.
Optio integration with MFG/PRO provides s customers with an industry leading document and output customization software solution. Optio s solution integrates with MFG/PRO enterprise s solutions, enabling users to take full advantage of the sophisticated capabilities of both a best-ofbreed document and output customization software solution product and the world-class MFG/PRO ERP application. Optio enterprise suite will complement and s leverage your investment in your MFG/PRO Application. Keeping your application implementation time and budget on on , streamline business processes, provide the ability to have complete control of document design and production, and a single solution for all your document formatting needs. THE OPTIO QAD PARTNERSHIP VALUE Flexible, scalable, manageable 1 With Technology Greatest Portability Best Support of Dynamic, Changing Business Requirements Best-in Class
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GLOSSARY
Spool Data An application output stream that is sent to a printer or print spooler. The elements in this stream are used as data for processing and/or output from the ODCS. Spool Data Mapping The process of identifying the geographical location of variable data that is contained in the spool file, to be used by the ODCS. Conditional Logic The process of altering a document format or distribution, in accordance to s pre-defined business rules based upon the information that appears within the print stream.
Output An application report or print file that has been requested to be printed. Output channel An output destination that is used by the ODCS for distribution of customized documents. Output Channels could include Thermal printers, Laser printers, email, fax, files, etc. Distributive Printing The process of printing a single document to multiple network addressable printers based upon pre-defined business rules. Device File - A file that specifies the attributes of a given type of printer or output channel. This would include printer language, paper trays, stacker options, and available fonts. Format The merging of the application data with the static elements of a form. Report Any standard report function, query or print job initiated from a MFG/PRO. Document The modular components that make up a formatted page of application output, including; datamaps, formats, segments, images, etc. ocgrab A utility used for collecting sample data. Accepts application data from stdin placing it in a file called ocgrab with the process id number as an extension. occonfig A configuration utility that provides a convenient way to manipulate the various types of controls files that make up the ODCS Form Generating System. The utility allows you to add/edit/delete/print/rename the various modular files of the ODCS, including datamaps, formats, devices, etc. ocserver Interprets the commands of the modules which make up the customized document being run through the ODCS, processes the input data received from the input channel, then produces and distributes the finished document.
Optio Software, Inc. 4800 River Green Parkway D u luth , GA 30096 Tel: +1.770.283.8500 Fax: +1.770.283.8699 w w w .optiosoftware.com Email: info@ o p tiosoftware.com