Ytria finds a highly adaptable PDF rendering solution for complex and dynamic forms in their CRM system.
Customer
Ytria, based in Montréal, Québec, Canada, is a leading provider of IBM Notes and Domino software tools. Thousands of organizations use Ytria software for faster Notes development and better Domino administration.
Challenge
Ytria’s is running a CRM system which is based entirely on IBM Notes and Domino and hosted on a heavily secured Linux server. An important feature that was missing in this system was the ability to create PDF invoices in a consistent manner and Ytria set out to find the best solution for this requirement.
The potential PDF creation solutions would need to comply with numerous specific technical requirements. Due to the legal importance of these documents, it was essential that the formatting of the generated PDF files be consistent from A to Z—and that the documents retained the same qualities regardless of who accesses them and from where.
Ytria made several attempts to provide for this requirement in the past, but most of them turned out to be hit and miss projects. A primary issue that Ytria faced was that the CRM system was only capable of generating HTML output and therefore generating a PDF output directly from the Notes forms was out of the question. Instead, when a customer needed their invoice in PDF format they had to request them individually from Ytria’s sales team who would in turn use a workaround to print the invoice from the Notes form. This was quite inefficient in terms of the workflow, and produced results that were rather inconsistent visually.
The Notes form that is used to store and manage the invoice information is quite complex and dynamic as it needs to account for many different situations that can arise with customer billing. Contrasting this to a static mail document that is very cut and dry, it was clear to Ytria that they needed a new and highly adaptable solution.
Solution
Ytria considered many general-type PDF solutions on the market but there weren’t many that could integrate seamlessly with Domino—and such solutions always required some sort of patching. Due to the workflow problems Ytria experienced with their past system it was clear that solutions of this type were not going to work out in the long run.
“When it comes to PDF documents with the legal weight of invoices, consistency in format is more than just a question of look and feel—neglecting this can have real consequences. SWING PDF Converter for Notes ensures that our PDF documents are accurate and professional every time.”
— Eric Houvenaghel, CEO
SWING Software is well known throughout the Notes community and having heard about the SWING PDF Converter solution through a fellow partner’s recommendation—Ytria decided to give it a try. Initially, the extremely tight security which was deployed on the Linux-based server caused some installation problems, coupled with the fact that SWING PDF Converter was originally intended for installations on Windows system. However, SWING Software’s technical team was very helpful and the deployment of the product ended up being a quick and painless process. Thanks to the clear documentation provided on SWING Software’s site Ytria was able to perform a custom installation by simply selecting the specific designs they needed and putting the data in the right place.
Having successfully deployed SWING PDF Converter on their server, Ytria is now using the product every time a PDF-formatted invoice is generated within their CRM system. This means that 8,000+ of Ytria’s users worldwide (via their online customer account), as well as Ytria’s own sales and administration staff, all have access to consistent PDFs on demand.
Results
For Ytria, the most important benefit provided by SWING PDF Converter is in the fact that every invoice generated within their CRM system now retains the exact same formatting regardless of where the PDF request comes from. A request may come in from a Web from, a Notes client, an XPage application, or from mobile devices, and in each case the CRM system is now able to generate consistent and professional looking PDF invoices very quickly. Ytria’s customers now have access to the exact same documents as used by Ytria’s staff.
What’s more, the improvements over Ytria’s previous workflow have been dramatic. Ytria’s staff previously had to spend as much as an hour in manual processing time per each PDF but after integrating PDF Converter in the CRM the workaround procedure has been eliminated completely.
“When it comes to PDF documents with the legal weight of invoices, consistency in format is more than just a question of look and feel—neglecting this can have real consequences. SWING PDF Converter for Notes ensures that our PDF documents are accurate and professional every time”, said Eric Houvenaghel, Ytria’s founder and CEO, “Furthermore, SWING Software’s technical support helped us resolve our issues so quickly that it felt like they were part of our own team.”
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