Success Story: Printing Invoices from UNIX to a Laser Printer

Integrated Document & Label Solutions, Inc., replaced an invoice printing solution that used preprinted continuous forms with data from a legacy UNIX system with a cut sheet laser printer. The new printer system kept the UNIX system but uses a middleware solution that outputs the invoice data in a format that can be printed from a Windows laser printer.

Niceware Technology

NiceLabel Suite with NiceWatch and NiceLabel Pro

Challenge

Integrated Document & Label Solutions has vast experience implementing document output solutions for their customers using enterprise document output products like JetForm Central^® and Standard Register’sLinkUp^®. Century Drill & Tool Co. could change the output within the current system; however, the time and cost involved to make these changes in the output from the UNIX based legacy system would be project prohibitive. Integrated  Document & Label Solutions started their search for a more cost effective and feature rich document output solution. The new software solution should allow Century to use their current continuous form output and map and redirect the data to a cut sheet laser output for invoices.

Solution

Integrated Document & Label Solutoins, a NiceLabel reseller, had been successfully using NiceLabel for all of their label formatting and printing needs. Kregg Van Horn of Integrated decided to implement NiceLabel^® Suite with NiceWatch as the new document output solution for invoices.

Kregg used the document analysis filter in NiceWatch to parse the text-based invoice that was the output from the UNIX application. He then, using the same filter, mapped the captured data to variables on the invoice template that was created in NiceLabel Pro. 

NiceWatch was installed on a Windows 2000 server. NiceWatch automatically captures the data stream and sends the new invoice to a laser printer on the network. Single page invoices and multiple page invoices are all handled in the same document analysis. “NiceLabel Suite with NiceWatch allowed us to easily capture and parse the existing data stream and map it to individual  variables on the new invoice,” said Kregg VanHorn of Integrated Document & Labeling Solutions, Inc. “We provided a document output solution to Century at a $1,000 per server cost as opposed to other products that cost from $6,000-$10,000. This cost/benefit enabled Century Drill & Tool Co. to deploy this solution on multiple servers with multiple copies of NiceWatch.”

Benefits

NiceWatch is an event-driven application capable of monitoring and detecting data in many different formats to trigger the start of label printing. NiceWatch is an affordable and easy-to-deploy solution that automates label printing in a multi-operating system environment (Unix, AS/400, Host, etc.) or complex application environments (ERP, WMS, etc.).

NiceWatch provides the following benefits:

• Universal solution
• Seamless integration with foreign and remote systems
• Quick set up, NO programming required
• Reliable print server technology for high-demand printing environments
• Affordable and cost-effective solution
• No additional printer licensing
• And more…

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