Business document software manages the creation, storage and delivery of documents for organizations rather than individual users. It provides businesses with the control over their documents that they need to thrive, especially those that regularly deal with a large variety of forms. Business document solutions allow you to consolidate and store digital and paper documents in a single location, including business cards, checks, images, presentations, spreadsheets and text files. You can also use these solutions to dynamically add data to your documents and securely deliver them to the desired location.
Selecting the best business document software solution for your organization can present a challenge due to their many capabilities. However, this process becomes simpler when you classify these capabilities into the following categories:
- Design
- Generation
- Distribution
- Integration
Design
Large businesses often find it especially challenging to identify business document software that can properly organize their documents. However, the right business document solution can improve your organization almost overnight, saving time and money in the long run. Security is also a major design concern for enterprises due to the potential consequences of proprietary and client information falling into the wrong hands. Business document software can keep documents safe by storing them on a cloud-based system that serves as a central repository for your organization.
Business document software solutions that run on multiple platforms are a must for enterprises, which routinely use different operating systems (OSs) like Windows, Linux, Unix, System i and zSeries. Many OSs are available in both 32- and 64-bit versions, which increases the challenge of meeting this requirement. A single interface that allows you to use all of the solution’s tools is also a major plus for business document software. Additional design features to look for include storing all the definitions in one file and allowing tasks to share data in memory. Performance and bandwidth usage are also important design factors in the selection process.
The increasing globalization of enterprises means that business document software should support languages that use non-occidental characters as well as occidental languages, including different languages on the same form. Additional form features useful for large businesses include 3D barcodes and charts.
Generation
The generation and storage of paper documents is often a problem for enterprises, which is a major benefit of business document software. Storing this information in the cloud means they aren’t at risk from natural and manmade disasters such as floods and fires. Furthermore, a single inoperative computer means that you can still access documents by simply using another one.
Enterprises should look for a solution that generates a single product, whether it’s for batch production or a Web environment. Users should be able to adapt templates during document generation to allow the merging of different documents such as contracts and bills of lading (BOLs). Scalable processes are also important generation features, especially for rapidly expanding businesses.
Enterprises also need to support multiple input and output formats when generating documents. Common input formats include FCFC, plain text, TagMode and XML, while popular output formats include AFP, Excel, labels, PDF, RTF and XML. Business document software should also support multiple output channels like email, fax, print and the internet.
Distribution
Enterprises typically need to distribute documents through multiple channels such as the internet, company intranets, email and fax to meet the diverse needs of their many clients. This capability generally involves using the same template for documents of different communication types such as letters, offers and policies. A single template is especially helpful for distributing documents in multiple formats like HTML5 and PDF as well as the many print formats currently available. Some software allows users to add enveloping marks to printed documents that will be mailed. The ability to distribute documents in different languages is another key capability of document solutions, particularly those intended for large organizations.
The capabilities of a business document solution should also include the ability to separate content from format, making it easier to distribute documents across multiple channels. This capability reduces the cost of distribution and enhances an enterprise’s corporate image by targeting messages for a particular audience. Customized advertising in client communications also allows organizations to create new business opportunities in addition to just providing clients with information.
Integration
Business document software should include a comprehensive set of tools that allows the company to migrate seamlessly from a legacy document software [like IBM® Advanced Function Printing Utilities, R-Forms, Control-D® (developed by BMC Software), IBM’s InfoPrint® Designer or Adobe Central (previously called JetForm and Accelio Central)], to a more advanced document software platform, and also integrate with an organization’s existing environment, including hardware platforms, enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions and Web applications.
These integration tools can allow users of hardware platforms like the iSeries and zSeries of IBM mainframe computers to generate documents in other environments while still maintaining system integrity. This process generally involves sending application data to one of the host’s print queues, where the business document software reads the data and sends it to an external platform. It then merges the host data with the native forms and returns the resulting document to the host for printing, thus relieving the host of a significant workload.
The integration of a business document solution with existing ERP software provides enterprises with numerous benefits such as reducing paper waste and improving document quality. A competitive document solution for enterprises can also go further with integration by extending an ERP system’s capabilities without additional programming. This capability allows the document solution to greatly increase the productivity of the ERP system.
Integrating with Web business applications requires business document software to provide a means of connecting its document generation engine to these applications. Such a connector must be able to quickly respond to a large number of concurrent requests if the document software is to distribute documents via the internet. This connector should also support a variety of Web technologies such as Java, .Net and WebServices.
J.C. Olivares
Business Development Mgr. at DocPath Corp.