Brooks Serves Print Streams to DocuWare ECM

October 2, 2012 Alex Woodie

Brooks Internet Software and DocuWare unveiled a partnership last week that will enable Brooks’ print driver software to serve output from hosts like IBM i, Unix, and mainframe servers into DocuWare’s enterprise content management (ECM) system.

The Brooks-DocuWare partnership involves Brooks Remote Print Manager (RPM), a Line Printer Daemon (LPD) print server that provides more flexibility in the management and handling of the print output of IBM i, mainframe, HP3000, OpenVMS, Unix, and Linux servers. The Windows-based software is commonly used to convert print output from IBM formats, like SCS or AFPDS, to more standard formats like PCL and PDF, and can also distribute output to e-mail and archives.

As part of the partnership, the companies have ensured that RPM works with DocuWare, a Windows-based ECM offering used by thousands of companies around the world. DocuWare, which is based in New Windsor, New York, provides a full range of content management capabilities with its software, including document capture, indexing, storage, search, retrieval, workflow, archive, and mobile access.

DocuWare could already capture documents from many different types of sources, including OCR scanners, email, databases, COLD storage, and others. Now that DocuWare is hooked up with Idaho Falls, Idaho-based Brooks, customers have another source for importing documents into their ECM systems, which may be particularly attractive for non-standard (i.e., non-Windows) systems like IBM i, Unix, and mainframe.

In addition to inputting these documents, the RPM software can make modifications, such as by generating a unique banner page for each print job with the user, title and timestamp, and then converting the job to PDF, says Brooks President Dave Brooks.