FormScape

Processing data to create and manage customforms across platforms

Within your organization, is form management a real headache? Is your programming staff spending more and more time on program modifications to accommodate minute changes in your organization's custom forms? If you answer yes to either question, you might want to consider AFP Technology's FormScape.

FormScape is an enterprise output management system that lets youcentralize form design and control the flow of output within your organizationfrom one server (i.e., the program takes the burden of generating form outputoff your workstation and places it on one server within your organization). Thisapproach saves you money on the overhead of forms maintenance. Instead ofupdating several copies of a form throughout your organization, you now haveonly one place to look and update the form. This approach also helps you reducenetwork load because you can print your form without sending the entireformatted print job across your network wire.

FormScape Components
FormScape consists of three components (FormScape Server, FormScapeDeveloper, and FormScape Reprint Manager) that work together to provide yourforms management solution. FormScape Server traps data that you want to mergewith a form from files on a hard disk or a Windows print queue

and processes the data (e.g., remaps it, changes fonts, configures overlays,and selects printers and papers). After FormScape Server finishes processingyour data, it routes the final output to a printer, fax, or other archivedevice. This component runs as a background process on your Windows NT orWindows 95 machine (on NT, it also runs as a service), and it doesn't requireuser input once you start it.

You use the FormScape Developer component to configure how the FormScapeServer component captures and processes print jobs. FormScape Developer refersto each unique set of instructions as a project. When you define a project forFormScape Server, you specify what input it uses, what processes it performs onthe data, and how it designs and redirects your output. FormScape Developerconsists of a
What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) interface, as you seein Screen 1, for creating your form layout.

The last component is FormScape Reprint Manager. This component lets youretrieve any document FormScape Server processes. Once you retrieve thedocument, you can view it online or print it.

Installation and Setup
Software installation is painless. You start by running setup.exe from theCD-ROM. After you answer a few questions regarding which components you want toinstall, the software copies the necessary files to your hard disk and you'reready to go (you don't need to reboot before you start using FormScape). Thesoftware initially installs with a seven-day trial license. Each time you launchFormScape Developer, you can choose to print a registration form to fax to AFPTechnology to receive an unlock code.

Becoming productive with the software takes time. The first time you launchFormScape Developer to set up a new form, you see a window with a tree-basedstructure outlining an empty project. The tree's structure depicts how FormScapeServer will process your print job.

The first step in setting up a project is to add a data collection methodby clicking a small Add-Point icon under the Processes branch of the tree. Afteryou set up the collection method, you design the layout of the form using afull-screen form editor. Finally, you tell the software how to map data you wantto merge with the form from the print queue or hard disk. After you completethese steps, you can test your project. If everything appears to be working, youcan load your project into FormScape Server.

Cross-Platform Features
A real benefit to FormScape is its platform-independent nature. You canshare FormScape files among PCs, UNIX, mainframe, and midrange systems throughthird-party interconnectivity products.

For example, a user on a SCO UNIX machine running SCO's Advanced File andPrint Server can direct output data for an invoice to an NT print queue.FormScape will intercept the data, format it, and print the invoice, completewith graphical formatting. This ability to automatically output forms can save alot of development time on platforms where designing graphical forms is notparticularly easy.

FormScape is a good product for any forms-based organization, large orsmall. If you're looking for a way to manage your forms across the enterprise,consider FormScape.