Turning the Page in Document Management and Business Intelligence
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Distributing Print to Reporting and Data Mining Solutions
Imagine consolidating the vast resources associated with paper-based document management and redirecting those resources toward enhancing corporate productivity and business intelligence. It's happening, and it's changing the face of business.
Enterprise Reporting and Data Mining
It all starts with a remarkably simple idea—capturing print data and storing it for secure, reliable, online access throughout the enterprise by anyone with a Web browser, email client, desktop application or even fax machine. Electronic report distribution, or enterprise reporting, represents a new way of thinking about managing, manipulating and distributing reports—a way of thinking that can benefit companies of all sizes, regardless of their existing reporting infrastructure.
Organizations new to enterprise reporting benefit from dramatic savings of time, money and effort over conventional printing, storage and distribution methods. Other key benefits include markedly enhanced availability of online reports, better security for sensitive information, and optimal use of corporate intranets and the Web for customer service, business-to-business and human resources operations.
For corporations with existing electronic reporting or archiving systems, such as magnetic or optical disc storage capability, the solutions enable online distribution options for on-demand viewing, sorting, indexing and filtering of reports, document-level or page-level security, and other powerful and convenient services. Overlay features enable display of live data on existing report templates and development of custom reports that pull data from multiple sources.
Companies preparing to exploit the vast reserves of information contained in a spectrum of current and historical reports benefit from advanced reporting and data mining solutions. These products consolidate business intelligence efforts and enable sophisticated analysis of trends for applications in marketing, customer service, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and other data-intensive needs.
End-to-End Report Management
CBuilding a successful reporting strategy requires taking stock of your existing printing infrastructure: print and report management systems have to be able to work together to produce an optimal result. Above all, that means getting print data off the host in a format your reporting software can accept. Since reporting and data mining systems vary widely in terms of the formats they accept, the more flexible and powerful your print management solution is, the better.
Critical print data in the enterprise originates from a spectrum of platforms, including mainframes, AS/400s, UNIX systems, Windows NT machines, and many others. These systems, in turn, host applications that produce printstreams in a variety of data formats, ranging from line data and escape sequence-based printer languages to full-blown compositional formats and page definition languages.
These considerations present significant networking, hardware and data transformation challenges for a print management solution that must support end-to-end report management.
The Barr Solution
Barr Systems offers front-end solutions that meet the challenges of implementing end-to-end print management in preparation for the reporting and data mining revolution. These solutions accept data from a multitude of hosts and network users, transform the data as needed, and distribute documents to reporting software for further processing.
An industry leader for more than 20 years, Barr partners with major reporting and data mining solution providers to provide comprehensive solutions for companies at any stage of development in the reporting arena. Barr's professional services play a critical role for organizations that are implementing scalable reporting systems, since installing such systems requires expertise in all areas of print management.
Conclusion
Report management and data mining will quickly become the gold standard for print distribution in the enterprise. Barr solutions give companies the opportunity to get ahead of the game by maximizing investments in current technology and obviating the need for modification of host applications.
For more information, send email to sales@barrsystems.com
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