April 2009 Newsletter
RJS Software Announces DeliverNow
For the past two years RJS has been working to consolidate its report delivery software modules into a unified, completely re-engineered package called Deliver Now. DeliverNow is designed to run on multiple environments including IBM i, Windows, and LINUX/UNIX/AIX. This completely new enterprise report delivery solution will allow our customers to easily expand existing capabilities and support to different computing environments.
To those customers using existing report delivery products we say, “Fear not.” RJS will continue to support these customers for many years into the future. For customers who want to upgrade to DeliverNow and take advantage of new capabilities including 1) Web Console design, 2) .NET compliance, and 3) support for AIX and LINUX, we have designed a cost-effective upgrade path including converters and services to make the transition seamless. We have also priced this upgrade recognizing the investment customers have already made in their existing environments. Customers can use existing licenses in parallel until such time you are fully trained and confident in the new DeliverNow environment.
Come visit us at COMMON (booth #402) for a demonstration of DeliverNow or contact your sales representative at 952-736-5800 for more information. Look for the production release in early July 2009.
Jerry Olson, V.P. Sales & Marketing – sales@rjssoftware.com
The Founder’s Corner
Visit us at COMMON in Reno
It’s time for the annual COMMON conference. This year the conference is being held in Reno, NV from April 26-28. Please make time to come and see us at booth 402 to learn more about our products, watch in-booth demos and register for prizes, including five $100 giveaways. We’ll be participating in an IBM presentation to discuss our partnership and participation in the Smart Cube/Smart Market program. We’ll also be showing off our high-volume A/P processing solution along with our strategic partner DataCap. On the security front we will be doing a class with Sophos to discuss current internet security threats. If your organization has been attacked by viruses or you are concerned about other security-compromising issues, you will not want to miss this class.
I will be doing three .Net sessions during the week. On Monday, April 27, I will be presenting my “VB.Net and i5/OS for Dummies” class. On Thursday, April 30, I will be presenting my “Running ASP.Net Web Apps and Web Services Natively on IBM i” class; and finally on Thursday, April 30, I will be presenting my “ASP.Net and i5/OS for Dummies” class. Visit our booth or the COMMON website for class details. If you’re interested in a personal meeting with me during the week, feel free to email me prior to the conference or stop by and see me at the booth or after any of my sessions. See you in Reno.
Richard J. Schoen, President, CTO - richard@rjssoftware.com
Case Study
Woodharbor Crafts Reliable Document Management
WebDocs and RJS Packet Printing ensure robust, efficient document capture, management and distribution.
Background
Woodharbor Doors and Cabinetry , a Mason City, Iowabased company, produces beautiful woodwork, but it knows from experience that another wood-based item, paper, can drain a company’s productivity. That’s why Woodharbor turned to RJS Software Systems and its WebDocs and Packet Printing solutions.
Challenge
Woodharbor runs most of its business on the IBM i platform, one of the most stable systems available today. However, the document management system that Woodharbor previously used didn’t run on the platform, wasn’t stable and didn’t provide the features they were looking for.
Clearly, this was not a situation that Woodharbor could continue to tolerate, particularly when you consider that it had about 4.5 million documents in the old system, a number that was constantly growing. The company solved its document management system functionality and stability problems by installing RJS Software’s WebDocs and Packet Printing.
Solution
WebDocs allows Woodharbor to scan or import and electronically store and manage virtually all of the company’s documents. Most of the company’s documents are order-related, including both orders from customers and orders to suppliers. Among the list of document types are the orders and purchase orders themselves, but also packing lists, acknowledgements and invoices, among others.
WebDocs was not the only document management software that Woodharbor considered, but RJS Software was the only vendor that had a feature-rich product and was willing to work with them on converting the 4.5 million documents that were in the previous system’s document database.
The RJS Packet Printing utility allows multiple files tobe assembled on the fly. The product makes it easy toprint and/or create images of document packets thathave variable content requirements. Woodharbor usesthe utility to automatically extract production-relateddocuments from WebDocs and send them directly to the departments and people who need them.
Results
Woodharbor has realized a variety of productivity and cost savings that have more than justified their investment. While many documents that are stored in WebDocs are system-generated, others have to be scanned in from paper. The efficiency of WebDocs’ scanning process has allowed Woodharbor to reduce scanning resources, despite now processing a higher volume of documents.
Woodharbor also appreciates the almost universal access made possible by WebDocs’ browser-based interface. Any authorized user with a browser can access documents. What’s more, access isn’t only universal; it’s simple. In fact, it’s so easy that users at Woodharbor go out of their way to tell the IT department how much they love WebDocs.
“People have been telling us how much they like WebDocs. They really love how easy it is to access and navigate through documents.”
- Ken Bahls, IT manager for Woodharbor
“We don’t normally get pulled aside for compliments,” said Ken Bahls, Woodharbor’s IT Manager. “It has to be pretty special to get someone to pull us aside and say, ‘this is really great.’ But people have been telling us how much they like WebDocs. They really love how easy it is to access and navigate through documents.”
RJS Services Corner
Come and Visit us at our COMMON Session
Tuesday, April 28, 2009 9:30-10:45am
Sophos, a strategic business partner of RJS Software, will be presenting a session on network security at the 2009 COMMON Annual Meeting and Exposition. Presenting the session is Richard Wang, head of one of Sophos’ security threat analysis centers located in Boston, MA.
Richard has been involved with malicious software research at Sophos for over a decade and brings a wealth of security expertise to the table. Richard leads a team of researchers across Canada and the U.S. who provide proactive protections for over 100 million users worldwide.
Session Details:
"So You Think Your Network is Secure: Organized crime goes for the gold with cyber crime."
IT professionals are responsible for securing an organization’s network against an ever-expanding set of challenges and threats. Cyber criminals bent on theft and/or extortion are constantly probing for ways to exploit computer and network vulnerabilities. These attacks are increasing and businesses that are unprotected or unaware of the threats are at tremendous risk.
Attend this session and learn about the current and projected threat landscape (Spam, Trojans, Worms, Web threats, Botnets, and more), and the implications it will have for organizations throughout 2009-2010. You’ll learn how to protect your network and computers and develop an integrated security framework that will help you sleep better at night.
Greg Schmidt, Director of Services and Consulting - greg@rjssoftware.com
RJS Tech Tips
Choosing a Storage Option
It has become a common practice for users of the iSeries version of WebDocs to choose not to store their image files on the iSeries itself. This is not to say storing images natively is a bad idea, but there are a number of options when it comes to storage including using Windows file servers. This is a very cost-effective storage solution as long as you plan for your needs.
The time it takes to access and back-up a Windows file server tends to increase when your image volume reaches a certain threshold. What the threshold is depends on many factors and can vary from one environment to another. A safe rule-of-thumb is approximately 250,000 image files per image storage directory.
Estimate how many files you will store in a calendar year and determine how long it will take to get to 250,000 documents. At those time intervals you should create a new image storage folder and change your configuration settings to use this new folder. Whether you use WebDocs iSeries and store your files on a Windows system or use WebDocs Windows, follow this simple strategy and you will have very few problems.
Larry John, Technical Manager – larry@rjssoftware.com
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