Collaborative needed to prevent documents
from a hosted insurance policy application from being
printed as page-by-page job requests. By doing so,
they would eliminate the risk of foreign print jobs
becoming interwoven with these important insurance
documents. As such, Collaborative needed to enable
complete document print requests without the expense
and risk of adapting the application.
IT Infrastructure
Microsoft® Windows NT, Windows 2000, Citrix
Realized Benefits
Risk of foreign document pages appearing in
insurance policy documents removed cost-effectively.
Quality of service to insurance agents/users improved.
"COSprint is easy to administer and its cost
of ownership is very low. OSM was great to work with
and the solution just runs and runs. I have had no
problems in the 15 months since installation, and
we’ve received no complaints from users about policy
printing."
Don Gingras, Collaborative Consulting
OSM Products
COSprint
OSM Services
OSM Professional Services
Collaborative
improves service levels to users of a hosted insurance policy application
by removing policy document printing headaches.
Collaborative
Consulting is a professional services
organization dedicated to helping clients maximize the return
on their information technology investments. Founded on
world-class performance engineering principles, Collaborative
builds applications that focus on functionality and
performance — helping clients identify risk, manage complexity
and achieve seamless profitable growth.
When Collaborative won
the contract to host an online
insurance policy automation package used by some 60 insurance
agents and their 350 users, it quickly became aware of
printing issues. For instance, its Microsoft® Windows NT-based
solution would send print jobs not as a complete document to
insurance agents’ print-spool and print queues, but as
multiple single-page jobs.
Since insurance policies
tend to be more than one page, this
could have posed problems for agents who decided not to
provide a dedicated printer for policy documents. Print jobs
generated locally for example, could easily enter the spool
queue between policy pages, leaving users to sort through jobs
manually to collate mixed documents. There was also the risk
that missed pages of foreign documents could find their way
into the wrong policy.
The developer of the
software Collaborative hosted feared
that this issue would prove to be expensive. However,
Collaborative Senior Consultant Don Gingras solved it
inexpensively with COSprint, the OSM print spooler and print
job manager. Gingras found OSM very willing to build a
customized solution that fit his specific requirements.
"I knew my
solution would be to install an output management
product. I approached a good number of vendors, but none had a
tool with the flexibility for cost-effective customization to
meet my needs," said Gingras. "Then I talked to OSM."
Collaborative runs Windows
NT 2000 almost exclusively, while
COSprint runs on UNIX and Linux. However, that the operating
systems were disparate was not a problem. In fact, it kept
costs down. OSM proposed a Linux-based solution, using the
open source file and print server suite "SAMBA" to allow
seamless integration with Collaborative’s Windows NT
environment.
Gingras was impressed
with how OSM’s Professional Services
Group took his requirement and built a ready-to-install
solution. "With OSM, it was so easy. I agreed to purchase a
Linux server on which they configured COSprint and built the
solution. They shipped me the box. I installed it on our
network. With a little remote support, everything was up and
running."
COSprint now takes
each page spool file sent to the output
queue by the policy application and collates those requests
into a single-document spool file. It then routes the entire
job via TCP/IP to the print queue of the agent’s designated
printer and the complete document is printed as a single job –
either live or batch, as required. The risk of other print
jobs becoming mixed in with policy documents is removed.
Collaborative and
the agents using the hosted application
enjoy other benefits, too. "With COSprint, we can observe
agents’ print queues via a Web interface. As a result, if any
document sent to the queue is not printed within a default
period, we can identify it and alert the agent, or send the
job again," said Gingras. "This ensures customers that their
documents are received by the insurance company.
"OSM provided excellent
support documentation," said Gingras.
"By sending a copy to new agents and telephoning them, we can
bring them online. I don’t have to send out a technician.
"COSprint
is easy to administer, and its cost of ownership is very low. OSM
was great to work with and the solution just runs and runs. I have
had no problems in the 15 months since installation and we’ve received
no complaints from users about policy printing."
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