“This is where the invoices print out.”
Automation can only go as far as the regularity of your job, right? Not anymore.
OctoTools integrates a conditional engine to facilitate irregularity and variance across the jobs you print. This conditional engine can observe compound logic including string and number comparison for any dynamic elements grabbed from your source job. When utilizing this open-ended tool, printing is radically altered; now, each job is handled based on its specific contents.
In one example of the conditional engine in action, consider an invoice with a negative balance. This is confusing to customers who may not understand the double negative to be a credit in their favor. By using the conditional engine, we can point to the bottom line and change aspects of the template if the total is negative. Or, if we have a header naming this form an ‘INVOICE’ at the top, we can automate it to read ‘CREDIT MEMO’ when the total is a negative number. We can also use other visual cues, such as highlighting 'Payments Due' in red and 'Credits' in green. By changing these elements, customers receive a less confusing invoice, and you created a completely different, and completely automated, template based entirely just on one condition.
When generating reports, it usually becomes necessary to analyze the reports. And in this analysis, examining and qualifying statistical outliers in this analysis can be a strain on the eyes and a hassle. OctoTools can use the conditional engine to highlight points of interest in the analysis. The conditional engine does a line-by-line examination of the reports. For example, a condition can be set to highlight a value that exceeds a threshold of 2000, so to draw the eye to these values for further investigation. And beyond that, if the report is so large that highlighting is not enough, OctoTools can conditionally insert search anchors to immediately tab through the data. A searchable tag reading “CHRG>2000” at each outlier makes research as easy as the ‘Find Next’ button.
While these minor elements work fantastic for their aspect, let’s look at the grander scale. A billing statement, call history, and personalized customer mailing all arrive at OctoTools from the same print source. A single template will not handle all this information as too many conditional transforms on this many elements will require too much work on one master template. Instead, set up individual templates for different job types. Use 'Run Conditions' to decide from the report which template is appropriate for the data. This may be obvious from details such as a header with the description present. Though this may be simple, we can still conditionally test any element we can point to in the job. For example, a customer’s address may be present in upper right corner of the billing statement print job but not the call history or personalized advertisement.
The automation inherent in OctoTools is truly sensational. Utilize the conditional engine and save time while you increase overall accuracy. And if your printing environment is decidedly complicated, we can help you get started and optimize your processes. Contract Brooks to do the design work for you. Our fully-functioning 21-day trial should be sufficient to build your OctoTools environment.
For more information, contact Bryan at +1 208 523 6970 or email bryan@brooksnet.com
Watched Folder Support. Set a monitor to periodically scan a folder designated by you with a specific file extension filter. Anything in this folder matching set criteria is queued in OctoTools and flagged as ran. Also, set 'print to archive' to this 'hot folder' and automate the entire transform process.
Build Conditions to Cover Variance. The conditional engine allows you to selectively format and insert graphics based on job contents. Modify the entire template used and the template's conditional actions. Preemptively set up every situation necessary for various jobs in order to automate form changes and more.
Document Management Preparation. With OctoTools, archive a PDF as well as print on a per job basis. One template can create a digital copy identical to the print out. This matching PDF is a digital copy ready to insert into a Document Management database. And, because you control where the PDF is stored, automate the insertion into your DMS (of course this depends on your DMS support).
Smart Job Bursting. No matter how you print out a batch of data, archive the work exactly how you want to. OctoTools can take the batch apart and start archiving individual PDF documents based on the job contents. This makes it possible to separate PDFs by account number, customer name, or any variable that can be grabbed dynamically.