Move Business-Critical iSeries-Hosted Document Printing to Laser Printers in Three Simple Steps

Save time and money, and streamline business document processing by eliminating preprinted forms and dot-matrix printers

by Lori Johnston
Published 05/24/2005

It is a time-consuming and expensive process to print business correspondence to line printers and dot-matrix printers and then manually distribute these documents. But despite this, it is surprising the number of companies that simply accept this inefficient and time-consuming task. Perhaps your company is one that is ready to move to a more streamlined process. If so, read on.

In every organization and in every industry, business-critical document correspondence is a daily occurrence. Whether it's invoicing, ordering, shipping, confirmations, or customer service, business documents are generated, printed, distributed, and processed following the business rules that have been in place for as long as the company has existed. If these documents are printed with line and dot-matrix printers, the process is time-consuming and expensive. However, if an electronic forms solution is in place, there is no waste when forms become obsolete, the printing and distribution process is dramatically streamlined, and you can quickly update forms designs whenever changes are needed.

Whether you create electronic forms with iSeries tools or third-party software packages, choosing the right solution requires several considerations:

• How long will it take to convert all of the documents into an electronic format?
• Is special staffing or a special service needed to accomplish this task?
• What is the process for implementation of the solution?
• How will this new solution affect users or customers?
• What types of printers will be needed?

Choose the Right Laser Printing Technology

Analyze the amount of document correspondence your company generates on a daily or weekly basis. This information is crucial when investigating both existing and new laser printer technology as well as when calculating your return on investment (ROI).

Why laser printers, you ask? Although line printers and dot matrix printers are considered to be high speed, they are noisy and expensive to maintain, and they require a good deal of manual intervention in order to handle preprinted, line-fed forms. Laser printers, on the other hand, are less expensive and use plain white paper for electronic forms printing, which is also more cost-effective than using preprinted forms. In addition, laser printer manufacturers now have high-speed models available, and electronic forms are supported on the standard printer control language (PCL) of laser printers across different manufacturers.

You should take a look at the existing models of laser printers on your network and determine whether they will be acceptable and/or whether new laser printers will be needed. The speed of the laser printer, its duplexing capabilities, and the number of available drawers need to be a top consideration on the choice of laser printer. To determine the necessary printer speed, you need to consider the number of documents that need to print in a timely manner. Once the determination is made on the type of laser printers, you need to make sure that it can communicate with your iSeries.

Benefits for the Merchant:

• Better manageability - Elite's iSeries-based signature capture integrated with iSeries-based merchant software;
• Employ a more efficient customer check-out process;
• Distribute copies of transaction documents via email or fax;
• Electronically archive point-of-sale transactions by

Choose the Right Electronic Forms Solution

Once you have a firm understanding of your business processes, the quantity of documents that are generated, and the type of laser printers you will need, the next step is to determine the most practical means of creating the electronic versions of your company's preprinted forms. You will quickly find that there are plenty of options to choose from.

Most packages allow you to design the overlay from scratch utilizing a graphical interface with WYSIWYG design capabilities that lets you define lines, boxes, and text in order to create the form layout.

There are solutions that allow for the import of preprinted, form-fed documents into the software program. Most will then let you see this as an image in the background so lines can be created over it. Some packages even have optical character recognition (OCR) capabilities that can re-draw the form and convert it to an editable file from which you can make changes.

The design package should provide you with features that you would find in most graphical programs, including the ability to import and resize logos and other graphics as well as the ability to create borders and shading and to specify colors. Choosing a solution with familiar graphical design features will make the initial design of the overlay an easier task with a smaller learning curve.

Once the design features and capabilities you desire are determined, the next task is to specify where the data is to print on the overlay. In electronic form printing, data placement is set up by instructions. The simplest method is a straight merging of spooled data with an overlay (no manipulation of data). However, one of the biggest benefits with many forms packages is the ability to manipulate the spool data--a process known as data placement instructions. The most popular method of creating data placement instructions (data manipulation) is drag-and-drop data placement. Some packages also allow you to define these instructions directly on the iSeries in addition to providing a drag-and-drop method.

Advanced business rules should also be a consideration when choosing an electronic forms printing solution. These rules, based on your business processes, are going to determine how the document is handled within a specific solution. These include overflow of data, notes, floating data, and conditional rules for additional overlays or company logos. Selecting a solution that conforms to your company's business rules will make all the difference when it comes to streamlining the document printing process.

Something else to be aware of is how the merging of data with the overlay takes place. Very often, this is done while documents are generated in batch mode. Most forms-printing software is designed to monitor a specific out queue on the iSeries for generated spool files from a business application and then re-route them to another out queue from which the merging of data and overlays is initiated. This is often completely transparent to the end user, which ensures that no end user retraining is necessary. Another way to accomplish the merging of data and overlays is to instruct the automatic printing process programmatically. This is usually done through API commands written into a CL program. Again, the solution is transparent to the end user. In an electronic forms printing solution, confirm which methods are offered in order to choose the method that is best for your organization.

Regardless of the solution chosen, it will automatically merge data with its predefined form application and route the output to the appropriate laser printer out queue.

The Final Step

Now that you have some food for thought, you can make some choices. It is always best to either test the solutions in-house on a trial basis or schedule online demonstrations of your choices before making the final decision. Keep in mind that the automation of printing and forms creation must meet your company's data processing requirements. In other words, you need to select a solution that reflects the manner in which your business produces its documents. In addition, a good electronic forms solution should streamline the document printing and distribution process, not add complexity to your users' daily activities and business operations.

Lori Johnston is the Director of Sales and Business Development for Elite Document Solutions, Inc., with eight years of experience in selling electronic document management and distribution solutions for the iSeries platform. She has her degree in Business Automation Management. Lori can be contacted at lori@elitedocuments.com