Many companies depend on IBM i generated spooled files to generate invoices, purchase orders, reports, and other business-critical documents. Unfortunately, spooled files can be unnecessarily lengthy because of disjointed content and inopportune line breaks resulting in half empty or even fully blank pages. Sometimes essential information may also be missing entirely. This can often mean, that employees need to manually piece together the final document. As a result, final documents look bad when printed, and have a high human error rate. Also, a lot of paper and a significant piece of the companies budget is wasted inefficiently. One solution is to modify the original spool file generating application, but this is not only time consuming, expensive and not always possible, but also is only a temporary fix.
Ecodocx’s Customer Communications Management (CCM) and Document Automation Solutions have consistently been recognized by analysts as a leader in the electronic document generation, automation, presentment and distribution space for almost a decade.
We are therefore delighted that with over 4,000 installations, our product has been recognized by Fortune 200 leaders as reliable, seamless and efficient. We believe our solution is scalable, transparent and straightforward at the same time. It allows IBM i (AS 400, OS 400) users to craft wonderfully consistent, yet individual business documents each and every time. Let me talk you through that.
How Can You Benefit from an Automated Generation of IBM i Spooled Files?
1) Omnichannel, Multichannel, and Cross-channel – We’ve Got All It Covered
Our solutions support all the document distribution channels you would expect: SMS, Fax, PDF, HTML, Print. If you are looking for mobile forms with digital signatures, then don’t look any further, we’ve got this covered as well.
2) Become the King of Data Mapping
By mapping spooled file data to different predefined fields on the page layout, our solutions can convert long, disorganized spool files, like the spool file example below, into condensed, organized and easy-to-read documents.
Users can also customize and enhance document content by automatically fetching data from third-party applications into predefined fields in the document template.
Also, users can finally edit the content shown on the final document, without having to modify the original IBM i spooled file.
3) Enable Creativity
Transform static, expensive pre-printed forms into dynamic, polished digital documents that not only speed up time-to-market for new products or services but also minimize administrative burdens.
Equipped with advanced design tools and features, users can easily design polished documents/checks/labels by using dynamic messages, page overlay, images, barcodes, complex tables, charts, and much more. Also, the template maintenance time can be significantly reduced by re-using template parts, and populating them with not only data from your IBM i spooled files but any business applications.
4) Manage Layouts Like a Pro – Whenever You Need It
You are right, many documents can and will be produced automatically without human intervention, and we help even the smallest customers to do that on an enterprise scale. But there are quite a few business processes, where a business user will need to add a few custom lines to make the end document a masterpiece before it can be delivered.
Our unique on-demand document creation mode allows users to do that with style. This flexibility within our system means you don’t need to create multiple versions (template, template 1, template 1a, …) of a template, but will have very few smart templates with conditions-based logic. No longer will you hear the phrase “they are the same, but kind of different”.
5) Build Custom Document Automation and Approval Workflows
Creating custom approval scenarios ( approve a report or a bill, or any other document), or automating onboarding processes (vendor onboarding, employee onboarding) is really easy with professional document generation and management solutions. These workflows can be easily adjusted to the way you and your team is used to work, and not the other way around.
6) Get the Most of Your Time and Strategic Investments
Automating your document management system and replacing costly pre-printed forms, which are often thrown away, with electronic forms, can save your company huge amounts of time and money.
Our customers use these solutions to maximize their investment in IBM i by reducing expenses, increasing productivity, and improving communication in a more secure and compliant manner. Our customers and partners around the world are leaders in key markets such as utilities, finance, manufacturing, transportation, retail, and healthcare. Our count on our top quality and reliable tools that work as promised, our technical expertise and our knowledgeable support team which is available 24/7.
7. On-Premises, SaaS, or Hybrid. Simple Pricing.
Our solutions are ready to go. We are happy to serve all: from the smallest SMB to the biggest enterprise. And we do our best to make your move to digital transformation as smooth and easy as possible in a transparent step-by-step mode. We have great experience helping customers to start within one module, and then scale up which they grow. We offer flexible CAPEX or OPEX budget models. And in case our solution packages aren’t quite meeting your expectations, we are always happy to sit down and arrange a licensing model that adjusts to your unique needs.
Those are seven key reasons why we think Ecodocx’s Customer Communications Management (CCM) and Document Automation Solutions brings the most out of your IBM i spooled files. CCM might be an unfamiliar acronym to IBM admins and owners, where the term Document Generation tends to prevail. But we like to challenge our friends to think beyond “Document Generation”. Let’s create great things together in a simple way. Because simple is best.