Symtrax Launches New Template Design Tool

May 15, 2012 Alex Woodie

Symtrax recently launched Compleo Designer, a new tool designed to simplify the process of creating reusable document templates from the structured output of ERP systems, including JD Edwards and SAP.

Compleo Designer was created to help users adapt to the continually changing business requirements surrounding their documents. The software allows users to quickly generate new electronic document templates from the output of ERP systems, and to modify them to meet their organization’s needs. These templates then are used to generate the finished documents, until the output from the underlying ERP system changes again, and the process repeats.

The document design cycle with Compleo Designer starts by capturing the structured output of the ERP system. In the case of SAP, it could be a file in the IDoc, XSF, or RDI formats. For every other ERP system, XML is used.

The designer then uses Compleo Designer’s GUI interface to reformat the raw ERP output into the desired look and feel. He can move page elements in drag-and-drop fashion, add barcodes, graphics, electronic signatures, page breaks, and page numbering to the document. The software even supports format tagging to make wide-scale changes, such as decimal conversions.

When the designer is happy with the reformatted document, he saves it as a template, and moves it into production. Other Compleo templates handle the runtime execution and the merging of templates with data from ERP output. The final document is delivered as a PDF that can be emailed, printed, or faxed.

Compleo Designer joins several other members of the Compleo suite. Compleo Layout offers similar design functionality, except that it’s used for importing and modifying existing forms (as opposed to working with structured ERP output, as is the case with Designer). Compleo Explorer, Compleo for XML, Compleo Supervisor, Compleo Reviewer, and Compleo Archivor round out the suite. For more information, see the vendor’s website at www.symtrax.com.