Solution400 Launches Imaging Solution with S4i Express 2.5

by Alex Woodie

Companies pleased with Solution400 International's document output management software will be happy to hear the vendor is going into the document input business. S4i entered into a reseller relationship in mid-November with Kofax, which writes a popular Microsoft Windows-based image and document capture package. S4i at the same time launched a new version of its document output management software, S4i Express 2.5, which supports the new imaging functionality, has closer integration with J.D. Edwards software, and features other enhancements.

S4i is an Oceanside, California, software company that sells its own two products, S4i Express and S4i DASD-Plus, as well as software from two of its business partners, iTera and Centerfield Technology. Susanne States, the company's director of sales and marketing, says the partnership with Kofax and the move to imaging is a natural extension of S4i's presence in the OS/400 document management market.

"We've had a number of folks tell us they've begun distributing their spool files electronically, or in a more targeted way, to reduce costs and paper consumption, both in terms of preprinted forms as well as printing and handling of documents and reports," States says. "Now, in phase two, they say, 'Help us get that stuff we've been storing for the past several years into an electronic format to help us cut down on the cost of warehousing, the effort to retrieve it, and our exposure with documents that get lost or damaged in the process.' "

S4i can now offer customers a more complete solution, States says. "Now, if you look at our whole document management product suite, we have everything from electronic file and image capture to distribution and archiving," she says. "It really helps to round out our solution suite."

Kofax is an Irvine, California, company that develops and markets two families of software products that automate converting scanned paper documents into searchable electronic documents. S4i's partnership involves Kofax's Ascend Capture suite of software, which S4i is now reselling. Ascend Capture houses the intelligence that translates raw image files outputted from scanners into usable information, and can interpret handwriting, optical character recognition data, checkmarks, and barcodes. The software includes a range of modules and interfaces for users to expand and customize the software, such as a postal scanning module, a COM-compatible interface, and the "import controller" that lets users write custom scripts for lifting information from back-office financial applications.

S4i has introduced a new module in its S4i Express line called S4i Express Image, which allows customers to connect their Ascend Capture input solution to their S4i output management system. Once a document from Ascend Capture is in the S4i Express repository, it is available for e-mail distribution or online viewing in PDF format. It can also be combined with other OS/400-based data using S4i Express, it can be printed from S4i Express as a PDF or PostScript document, or it can be distributed via any supported S4i Express distribution method.

One of S4i's business partners--unnamed by S4i but known to be an ERP software company that focuses on the beverage distribution market--plans to offer the new scanning and image capture capability to its user base, States says. The new functionality will, for example, allow beverage distributors to send any hard-copy documents, such as hand-written changes made to an order by a driver at time of delivery, along with the regular invoices, she says.

Changes have also been made to the S4i Express for OneWorld add-on module, allowing more flexible and efficient handling of the PDF documents created by the J.D. Edwards ERP package. With S4i Express 2.5, users can now segment spooled OneWorld PDF documents by page data, by absolute page number, or by ranges of pages. Other new features that make handling documents more efficient are the capability to index OneWorld PDF documents based on specific examination points within the data, and the capability to select multiple documents for a single distribution effort from within the S4i Express WebView and S4i Index (formerly S4i HostView) add-on modules.

A number of other features have been introduced in S4i Express 2.5, including new blind-copy and return-receipt e-mail functionality, new comma-separated value (CSV) output options, and new segmentation and indexing rules for sorting data that is to be distributed.

Pricing for S4i Express is tier-based and ranges from $3,000 (P05) to $24,000 (P60) for the base S4i Express product (without archiving). The addition of archiving functionality through the S4i Express Index module raises the price range to between $6,000 and $42,000. Users can add the WebView module to either of the above two setups for between $1,000 and $7,000, depending on their tier. The S4i Express Image functionality costs an additional $750 to $4,950, depending on the tier. For more information, go to www.solution400.com.

Sponsored By CENTERFIELD TECHNOLOGY

Do your iSeries batch jobs always finish before the results are needed by your business? IT departments are responsible for much more than just keeping the system running . . . they also must answer to financial, marketing, HR, and sales managers who need data analysis NOW. If there were a way for you to deliver the data much faster without going through the intricacies of re-configuring your batch jobs by hand, the expense of more CPU and memory capacity, and finding out how much difference the right tool makes without a lengthy evaluation, wouldn't you do it? Click now to sign up! Centerfield Technology batch/ACCELERATOR Timely and accurate data analysis depends on large reports, check runs, consolidations, data warehouse extracts and the like--running in batch mode to avoid conflicts between complex, CPU-intensive processing and vital interactive functions. Today, vital interactive applications must be available more hours because of systems consolidations, constant web access, and worldwide operations spanning all 24 hours of every day. Increased data storage requirements, user access, and complexity are making high availability more and more difficult to achieve. Batch processes have become even more important, more resource intensive, and more time consuming. Even with the most powerful iSeries hardware, many shops are finding that batch jobs are taking longer while their batch windows are shrinking. The purpose of batch/ACCELERATOR is to help alleviate the pressure on system and application availability through the use of advanced, automated techniques to reduce batch job elapsed time. Centerfield Technology has developed batch/ACCELERATOR to speed this processing so that business users will get their data quicker, without affecting transaction performance. batch/ACCELERATOR is designed to address application and systems management challenges that include: Processes that must run back-to-back (single threaded) due to data dependencies. Programs that process large amounts of data and tend to be I/O bound in the disk subsystem. The inability to tune batch jobs due to lack of knowledge or fear of "breaking" an existing process. Underutilization of system CPU and memory capacity. batch/ACCELERATOR is fully automated, does not require coding changes to applications, or changes to system configuration, and it adapts to processing changes without human intervention. Centerfield will even pre-configure batch/ACCELERATOR, through a unique data-collection process, so that you'll barely have to lift a finger to substantially reduce the elapsed time of your most challenging batch processes. Give us a call right away if you have any questions or concerns . . 507-287-8119.