Elite Documents Gives eFile Cabinet a Web Interface

Published: March 21, 2006

by Alex Woodie

Elite Document Solutions, one of the vendors serving the market for OS/400 electronic document management software, has some interesting stuff coming out. The first is a new Web browser interface for eFile Cabinet, a NAS device that provides affordable archiving for iSeries servers. The company is also offering customers the option of adding word processing capabilities, such as word wrapping, to iSeries-generated spool files.

Everything in Elite's arsenal of document management solutions starts with the iSeries. Its customers are iSeries customers, and its EliteSUITE tools are specifically designed to improve the look of spool files, reports, and other documents generated by OS/400 applications, and a customer's ability to distribute them. Forms overlay merges take place on the iSeries, and the iSeries IFS is the primary storage container for documents that have been electrified by Elite.

While some of the EliteSUITE's supporting cast runs on Windows, including the WYSIWYG forms design tool and the eFile Cabinet storage device, this is only to help Elite's customers make their iSeries environment more efficient, the company says. After all, it's pretty tough to create good-looking forms using a 5250 interface (not that it can't be done), and iSeries DASD is an expensive way to store images of old business correspondence, even if the underlying data stays on the iSeries.

Some of Elite's new Windows-related enhancements will be on display at the COMMON conference in Minnesota next week.

First up is the new Web browser interface to the eFile Cabinet, a network attached storage (NAS) solution the Southern California company unveiled almost two years ago (see "Elite Document Solutions Introduces NAS Archival Device"). Elite offers eFile Cabinet as a software-only solution for users that already have hardware that will serve as a NAS file server, or it can provide an optional pre-configured solution using the SATA-based Snap Server device it OEMs from Adaptec (formerly Snap Appliance).

With eFile Cabinet 2.0, the company will provide customers with tools needed to implement a Web-based archival solution that includes indexing and searching capabilities.

Prior to this release, eFile Cabinet, out-of-the-box, restricted users to a Windows or a 5250 interface, says Elite's president, Andrew Rackauckas. However, demand for providing external users, including business partners and customers, with access to iSeries-based documents, such as purchase orders and invoices, drove Elite to develop this capability.

"It seems to be pretty important especially if you're doing business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions, so the customer can come in and look at information externally," Rackauckas says. The company would custom develop Web interfaces for eFile Cabinet customers, but it wasn't a smooth integration, he says.

Elite used open-source PHP and mySQL technology to develop the new Web interface to eFile Cabinet, Rackauckas says. Users will have a bit of configuration work to hook up eFile Cabinet to a Windows or Unix Web server running on the NAS device, but the work is not that difficult, he says, and detailed instructions are provided by Elite, or the company can send somebody on-site to configure it.

Elite's second announcement will allow customers to make even better looking documents by hooking their iSeries spool files to desktop word processing programs, allowing them to take advantage of features like word wrapping, proportional fonts, and page break capabilities.

By uploading Rich Text Format (RTF) templates from common word processing programs like Microsoft's Word, Corel's WordPerfect, or Sun Microsystems' StarOffice, Elite will give its iSeries customers the advantage of these advanced features, while still printing and managing the printers from the iSeries.

Elite could develop its own word-wrapping technology if it invested the time and effort, but why bother when it's easily accessible in the open-source RTF format (which Elite chose over the proprietary .DOC format used in Microsoft's Word). "Word wrapping is a very difficult thing to do," Rackauckas says. "We could work at it, but it's much better off if it's done by Word or RTF."

Last but not least, Elite is expected to launch a new e-commerce Web site where customers can buy consumables, such as toner and MICR check stock. For more information, visit www.elitedocuments.com.