Quadrant’s Formtastic Keeps Closer Watch on Print Jobs

January 8, 2008 Alex Woodie

While there are many upsides to document management technology, the capability it provides users to generate practically any document with a just few keystrokes–such as printing oneself a bonus check from the company’s coffers–is a powerful invitation for fraud. Quadrant Software recently addressed this problem (if not the temptation) with Formtastic 5.4.1, a December release of its i5/OS-based document management solution that introduces new auditing tools designed to make business’ data, documents, and dollars, more secure.

Formtastic is a widely used and mature suite of i5/OS and Windows software products designed to merge variable print stream data originating from System i servers with pre-defined document templates, enabling customers to use standard laser printers to generate custom forms, labels, and checks, and to eliminate pre-printed forms. The software has been in use for years at companies using many midrange ERP systems, including J.D. Edwards, BPCS, PRMS, S2K, and MAPICS, and features a variety of add-on modules for MICR check printing, for pre-formatting i5/OS output, for generating tax forms, and others.

In response to the need for greater security, the Tampa, Florida, company last month announced a new release of Formtastic that would enable greater scrutiny of the critical print jobs Formtastic processes for users. In addition to these features, version 5.4.1 also introduced user interface enhancements, improvements to PDF generation and printing, and better support for signature pads, among other enhancements.

On the security front, a new audit reporting capability was added to Formtastic to help managers ascertain how the product is being used in conjunction with other Quadrant products, such as IntelliChief, the company’s Windows-based content management system, and its FastFax product line, which is used to send and receive faxes and e-mails.

Being able to track requests made among the products helps boost security, Quadrant says. For example, if a user creates a purchase order in Formtastic that is faxed or e-mailed via FastFax, and archived by IntelliChief, the new audit reporting capability will record those transactions, which is useful for reporting and troubleshooting purposes, the company says.

Formtastic’s 5250 user interface also received enhancements that will boost security by allowing managers to sort and filter merges processed by Formtastic. The new “work with jobs” screen shows the type of document, such as form, check, or label, the type of merge (manual or automatic), the date and time of the merge, and the user that initiated the job.

Other attributes are also tracked by the system, such as whether the data was a spooled file or a database file, where data was output, documents within the job, and the existence of embedded API commands. All these are aimed at tightening the system and preventing unauthorized use of the software.

A final security improvement was added to prevent check fraud. With Formtastic 5.4.1, a manager is provided with ways to track all print jobs involving blank checks.

On the PDF front, the new release of Formtastic should be better able to deal with large PDF print jobs. Users can now set up the software to automatically convert multiple merges to PDF, including merges involving multiple locations.

The product’s support for signature capturing devices, such as the ones from Topaz, has also been improved. Previous releases of the product supported signature clipboards, such as the Topaz ClipGem. Now it supports the Topaz Signature Pads, enabling customers to capture signatures for proof of delivery, invoicing, and other customer service purposes.

A series of miscellaneous enhancements have also been added to the product, including new purge commands for deleting job, audit, and file history information that is unnecessarily taking up valuable disk space; new API commands for automatically archiving check images in IntelliChief; and a new shorthand for calling up Formtastic menu choices from the green screen.

Formtastic 5.4.1 is available now. Pricing still starts at $8,400. For more information, see www.quadrantsoftware.com.

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Do the Math When Looking at IBM i Hosting for Cost Savings

COVID-19 has accelerated certain business trends that were already gaining strength prior to the start of the pandemic. E-commerce, telehealth, and video conferencing are some of the most obvious examples. One example that may not be as obvious to the general public but has a profound impact on business is the shift in strategy of IBM i infrastructure from traditional, on-premises environments to some form of remote configuration. These remote configurations and all of their variations are broadly referred to in the community as IBM i hosting.

“Hosting” in this context can mean different things to different people, and in general, hosting refers to one of two scenarios. In the first scenario, hosting can refer to a client owned machine that is housed in a co-location facility (commonly called a co-lo for short) where the data center provides traditional system administrator services, relieving the client of administrative and operational responsibilities. In the second scenario, hosting can refer to an MSP owned machine in which partition resources are provided to the client in an on-demand capacity. This scenario allows the client to completely outsource all aspects of Power Systems hardware and the IBM i operating system and database.

The scenario that is best for each business depends on a number of factors and is largely up for debate. In most cases, pursuing hosting purely as a cost saving strategy is a dead end. Furthermore, when you consider all of the costs associated with maintaining and IBM i environment, it is typically not a cost-effective option for the small to midsize market. The most cost-effective approach for these organizations is often a combination of a client owned and maintained system (either on-prem or in a co-lo) with cloud backup and disaster-recovery-as-a-service. Only in some cases of larger enterprise companies can a hosting strategy start to become a potentially cost-effective option.

However, cost savings is just one part of the story. As IBM i expertise becomes scarce and IT resources run tight, the only option for some firms may be to pursue hosting in some capacity. Whatever the driving force for pursing hosting may be, the key point is that it is not just simply an option for running your workload in a different location. There are many details to consider and it is to the best interest of the client to work with an experienced MSP in weighing the benefits and drawbacks of each option. As COVID-19 rolls on, time will tell if IBM i hosting strategies will follow the other strong business trends of the pandemic.

When we say do the math in the title above, it literally means that you need to do the math for your particular scenario. It is not about us doing the math for you, making a case for either staying on premises or for moving to the cloud. There is not one answer, but just different levels of cost to be reckoned which yield different answers. Most IBM i shops have fairly static workloads, at least measured against the larger mix of stuff on the public clouds of the world. How do you measure the value of controlling your own IT fate? That will only be fully recognized at the moment when it is sorely missed the most.

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