InfoPrint Solutions Company Exstream Dialogue

Design, Personalize, and Deliver Customer Communications with a Single Tool.

Exstream Dialogue^™ is a comprehensive business communication solution that combines document creation, campaign management and tracking, multi-channel delivery, and web application development into one easy-to-use software suite.

Highlights:

• CRM-based enterprise business communication system
• Complete 1:1 personalization for print, interactive, and Web environments
• Deliver through any communication channel
• Deliver full color communications
• Over 60 modules provide a high-function business communication infrastructure with the opportunity to tailor the function to your needs
• Wide range of data input formats, including Word, OGL, Metacode, XML, PDF, Quark, AFP
• Over 18 print and electronic output formats, including AFP, PCL, Postscript, PPML, VIPP, XML, HTML, PDF, PowerPoint
• Integration marketing modules to drive effective campaigns and integrate with CRM systems

Please contact your local InfoPrint Solutions Company representative or Solutions Partner for local availability.

InfoPrint Solutions Company Exstream Dialogue

Design, Personalize, and Deliver Customer Communications with a Single Tool.

Features	Benefits
Single platform for business communications	Many output solutions are point products – they solve one specific problem. Dialogue™ is comprehensive, dealing with virtually all aspects of business communications. This can reduce the costs of implementing and managing disparate products, improve time to market with new applications, and reduce integration costs and exposures.
Design once, deploy in multiple environments	With Dialogue, you can design documents once then deploy in batch, real-time, or Web environments. This can eliminate the need for multiple products, reduce time to market for multi-environment applications, and improve consistency across all enterprise communications.
Design once, distribute anywhere	Dialogue enables companies to design documents and then route them across a wide range of print and electronic formats. There are 12 print formats supported, covering the major printer formats found in company environments. It eliminates the need for additional point products to support this format or that printer. The electronic distribution formats enable those significant cost savings over hardcopy. Dialogue can also reduce IT expenses, replacing programming with automated or graphical functions.
Integrated marketing support	ialogue is architected around marketing to the customer. CRM is not an afterthought. Companies can easily integrate Dialogue functions into the processes that they currently use to serve and market to their customers. This avoids the additional costs of adding and integrating more programming and/or software.
Document workflow support	Many enterprises have a complex collaborative document design process with many stakeholders. Dialogue supports these workflows with automated functions that expedite the time to market and improve the final product.
Multiple server platforms	Dialogue is supported on AIX, z/OS, HP-UX, Sun Solaris, and Windows. This means that larger enterprises with multi-platform environments can standardized on Dialogue for business communications.
Advanced design – high-value documents	Dialogue is advanced design – geared for high-value documents such as statements, 401Ks, and insurance policies. The bar for document content and complexity continues to rise and Dialogue is designed to exceed the bar for even the most demanding communications. High-value documents improve customer response rates, enable targeted messages, expand touch points, reward the best customers, improve customer service, create better customer interactions, improve cash flows, and increase revenues.
Object architecture	Dialogue is architected around externalized and re-usible document objects. Images, text, graphics, and other document content can be created once and used across many applications. This reduces time to market, reduces new application development costs, and ensures consistency.
Production workflow	Dialogue contains comprehensive support for high-volume production printing – from design to print to post-production. Customers can count on their production environment and workflow being supported with software architected to perform.
Production performance	Time is money in production print operations. Dialogue is architected to create high-performance print data streams and controls that flow smoothly through the printing process.

InfoPrint Solutions Company Exstream Dialogue

Design, Personalize, and Deliver Customer Communications with a Single Tool.

Designer

The intuitive, visual design interface. Users create design components and define business rules and production characteristics. These design objects can be created once and then reused in multiple applications. Dialogue^™ is an object-oriented system, meaning that users create objects and combine them together to build applications. The design database houses all of these objects as well as the processes associated with applications including security access, version control, workflow definitions, campaign management rules, and application packaging.

Design PDF

This module allows PDF files to be imported as images into a Dialogue design object, such as a page. PDFs are converted to images to maintain the original color quality. If output to PDF, the imported PDF is merged with the Dialogue design elements to create a new, completely integrated output PDF.

Metacode-DXF

This DXF converter allows you to incorporate Metacode designs into Dialogue applications. Imports Metacode print streams into Dialogue at design time to create page objects.

Overlay Generation Language (OGL) Converter

Allows Dialogue to convert OGL, a AFP overlay language used to define and create forms, into the Dialogue Exchange Format (DXF). Once the OGL DXF file is imported into Designer, the new forms can be edited and enhanced with variable content. Features include:

Dialogue Compare

Reduces testing time by allowing you to quickly compare the Dialogue ECF output from two different runs. Designed for full comparisons of Dialogue output, this utility is especially useful when upgrading to new versions of Dialogue or validating whether desired changes have taken effect.

AFP Compare

This module is a comparison utility for viewing two AFP print streams side by side to verify output quality before production. It uses the native capabilities of InfoPrint AFP Viewer Plus to compare two pages, allowing you to test document applications in a fraction of the time it takes with manual methods. With AFP Compare, you can visually check output on the screen for quality assurance before running expensive production.

InfoPrint AFP Viewer Plus

InfoPrint AFP Viewer Plus is WYSIWYG display software for viewing, modifying, indexing, and printing AFP files. AFP files are rendered on the screen exactly as they will appear in print. Additionally, InfoPrint AFP Viewer Plus allows you to create subsets of the original document, with or without resources. It includes search capabilities for text or indexed Tagged Logical Elements (TLE).

1:1 Document Creator

This module includes the base functionality needed to build personalized documents for print and electronic delivery in batch, real-time, and interactive processing environments. 1:1 Document Creator, combined with Designer and a single output driver, is the minimum configuration required to build a fully-personalized document using Dialogue.

Advanced tables

Allows you to create sophisticated statements and other complex documents using transaction-driven tables that flow dynamically from one page to another. Table entries are automatically populated from input data at run time. Section and subsection based tables are supported, as well as controls for ensuring that headers and footers are properly handled when tables flow onto multiple pages. Tables can include an unlimited number of levels, and widow/orphan control is automatic.

Publication Support

This module lets you create complex publications that include tables of contents, cross-references, footnotes, and indexing.

Compliance Support

Compliance Support makes it easy to manage content by effective dates and jurisdictions (or locations). This allows compliance administrators and other business users to ensure that appropriate content is automatically included in (or excluded from) customer documents based on effective dates and/or jurisdictions. Compliance Support is particularly important for the insurance industry, which is continually challenged to maintain varying content that complies with state and national government regulations. For example, insurance companies are often required to produce policies based on a customer's state and the language approved by that state's insurance commission as of the date the policy contract was signed. By specifying the customer's state and effective date, Dialogue automatically picks from various versions of the same text or paragraphs.

Unicode Support

Unicode Support enables Dialogue to read data and produce output that is double-byte encoded. This module is required for support of languages, such as Japanese and Chinese, using two bytes to reference characters.

Campaign Management

This module provides advanced message management and formatting so you can build and integrate sophisticated 1:1 marketing and informational messages into your print and electronic documents. Campaigns can include an unlimited number of text or graphical messages and are designed to target specific customer profiles. They are created by marketing or other business users, then prioritized, selected, and integrated into the document at run time, depending on the customer data being processed.

Advanced Campaign Management and Tracking

This module includes all the capabilities of the Campaign Management module with the added ability to link campaigns together, track every campaign that goes to every customer, and analyze campaign results.

ODBC Data Access

ODBC, or Open Database Connectivity, is a popular standard that enables Dialogue's production engine to access relational databases and other enterprise data sources directly during document creation. The ODBC Access module lets you map any ODBC relational database into Dialogue without the use of a custom-written program. ODBC query results are mapped to variables using Designer and stored as library objects. Users are presented with table views of the data, making it easy to map and extract the appropriate data.

Print Miner

This module lets you use an existing print file as input to Dialogue. Dialogue uses data from the print file to repurpose applications, including reformatting, changing colors, adding marketing messages, and converting to multiple outputs.

Dynamic Content Import

This module lets you import images, text, RTF and PDF files into a document as it is created. Objects are imported to placeholder variables that define their characteristics and file location, and are included in the composed output at run time.

PDF Import as Image

Allows you to use placeholder variables to import PDF content at run time into AFP, Composed XML, PDF, PostScript, PPML, VIPP, and VPS print streams.

Dynamic Data Access

Dynamic Data Access (DDA) is Dialogue's connector architecture module. It connects Dialogue's production engine to any system or database in your enterprise infrastructure to collect data, update data, write reports, or execute user-written routines. This allows Dialogue to process transaction data in real time, support encryption/decryption applications, and read/write to any corporate database or application. DDA can be used for any or all of the Dialogue driver, initialization, reference, and report files to eliminate flat file input and data retrieval ahead of time.

InfoPrint Solutions Company WebSphere MQ

The InfoPrint Solutions Company WebSphere MQ connector supports both synchronous and asynchronous messaging for a variety of applications.

Java Messaging Service (JMS)

The JMS connector is part of the open J2EE platform and provides seamless integration with Java standard messaging. The JMS connector is typically used for Web applications, particularly transaction processing, and supports both synchronous and asynchronous messaging.

Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)

SOAP, an XML-based messaging technology, is a W3C standard which specifies the rules for locating Web services. The Dialogue SOAP connector integrates Web services with applications (regardless of how those applications were built) and facilitates the communication between them.

Microsoft^™ Message Queue (MSMQ) Connector

The MSMQ connector allows Dialogue to communicate with user-written programs or other enterprise infrastructure software via messages placed in Microsoft message queues, providing rich integration with other systems.

InfoPrint Solutions Company Content Manager

An out-of-the-box DDA connector that allows the retrieval of content directly from the InfoPrint Solutions Company Content Manager database.

Watched Directory

Allows implementation of a new type of real-time system. It watches a directory for data source files until it is given the command to shut down. When a file is presented, it opens the file, reads its contents, and passes the information to the Dialogue Engine for processing.

High-Volume Delivery

This module lets you control the creation of print files to maximize the efficiency of your print/mail centers. Dialogue simultaneously builds output files for delivery through virtually any print and electronic channel for example, a color version, an e-mail version, and a black and white version. To streamline distribution, outputs can be routed to the appropriate queue based on the number of pages, weight, or other rule-based specifications. Dialogue performs imposition, creates audit files, and breaks the print stream into subsets based on the queue. Features include:

Output Sorting and Bundling

Output Sorting and Bundling allows customer communications to be reordered and grouped into "bundles" (or householded) after document composition, but before output is created. The High-Volume Delivery module is required to use Output Sorting & Bundling.

Application Consolidator

This module allows you to consolidate output from different Dialogue applications, run at different times, into one sort file. It also lets you do advanced householding for better postal rates and break large runs into smaller, more manageable ones. Both the High-Volume Delivery and Output Sorting & Bundling modules are required to use Application Consolidator.

AFP Jazz!^™

AFP Jazz! is a next-generation print stream optimization solution for adding and deleting content, as well as merging, sorting, and consolidating AFP files all through a visual interface. This module requires no AFP training or programming, so your AFP output can be easily enhanced to meet changing business objectives without complicated, time-consuming programming efforts to incorporate changes.

Dialogue Batch Compare

Reduces testing time by allowing a quick batch compare of two Dialogue ECF output files from different runs of Dialogue. Batch Compare will create a report file that identifies the volume and type of changes encountered between the two files. Once you have identified the differences, you can use the Dialogue Compare utility to view the differences.

AFP Conversion

Dialogue offers four modules for converting fully composed AFP input into PDF, TIFF, PCL, and BMP formats. These AFP conversion modules allow you to leverage InfoPrint Solutions Company AFP print architectures with the latest output devices. You can meet demand for online delivery with the AFP converters serving as a bridge between existing applications and electronic delivery devices. Additionally, you can maximize printer assets by routing AFP documents to available production printers and Internet output formats. These conversion tools can also simplify indexing and archiving by allowing you to index data according to AFP page content and integrating it into COLD and content management systems.

AFP-PDF

Converts fully composed AFP input into Portable Document Format (PDF).

AFP-TIFF

Converts fully composed AFP input into a Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) image.

AFP-PCL

Converts fully composed AFP input into Printer Control Language (PCL) format.

AFP-BMP

Converts fully composed AFP input into a bitmap (BMP) image.

Tem'Post

Designed exclusively for companies in France, the Tem'Post module is a ready-to-use solution embedding all rules necessary for "Tem'Post" compliance. The Tem'Post module streamlines the process of postal distribution according to the standard French Poste "Tem'Post" contract. In particular, this contract requires specific sorting and bundling of envelopes into containers that cannot exceed determined weights, allowing enterprises using the Tem'Post module to reduce their postal costs by as much as 10%.

Advanced Function Presentation (AFP)

The AFP formats produced by Dialogue are user controlled and support Image Output Content Architecture (IOCA) and Image Format 1 (IM1) formats, raster font creation and inclusion, Graphic Object Content Architecture (GOCA) shading and drawing components, Tagged Logical Element (TLE), and No Operation (NOP) record creation. All resources are created and can be included in the print stream. Color modes supported include AFP full color; AFP OCA in color, black and white, highlight, or spot color; and black and white. Three levels of AFP optimization can be selected.

Ink Jet Printer Data Stream (IJPDS)

IJPDS is an ink jet print format for Scitex Digital printers. It supports black and white, highlight color, and full color modes. IJPDS is an ideal format for Scitex's VersaMark Business Color Press because it runs high-volume, transaction-oriented color documents at very fast speeds and lower print costs.

Line Data

Supports output to 3211 impact line printers. Features include record separation, text overflow, ANSI or MACHINE carriage controls, ASCII and EBCDIC output character sets, number of lines-per-inch, number of characters-per-inch, blank line removal, and line overprinting.

Metacode

Metacode is a format used for Xerox high-speed laser printers. Dialogue-produced Metacode output allows for image and font creation on the fly. Dialogue adds kerning and tracking for fonts, as well as enhanced shading and area patterns, to extend the base functionality contained in Metacode. Full color, highlight color, dual tone, and black and white modes are supported for both online and offline environments. Optimization for online high-speed printers is optional.

MIBF

The Memory Image Bitmap File (MIBF) format is a proprietary Miyakoshi Corporation file format for inkjet print streams. This module supports high-speed, full-color production. The color transformations are based on a single input ICC profile and output ICC profile specified in printer settings. The profiles are applied to all images in packaging. MIBF supports high-quality plane separation for CMYK JPEG and CMYK TIFF images. MIBF produces multiple output files based upon the number of Bitmap Image Processors (BIPs) specified in the printer setting.

Personalized Print Markup Language (PPML)

PPML is a print language that supports color printing. It is an open, device-independent standard that allows personalized print in a wide variety of environments.

PostScript

Dialogue supports both Level 2 and Level 3 PostScript devices. Dialogue automatically builds forms and images, and places them at the top of the print stream so they can be pre-ripped and referenced. Both Type42 fonts (available in PostScript v2.013 and above) and Adobe Type1 fonts can be created to support all Level 2 and Level 3 PostScript printers. Full color, highlight color, gray scale, and black and white modes are supported.

Printer Control Language (PCL)

This module provides functionality for PCL V5 printers. It supports black and white, gray scale, highlight color, and full color modes.

Variable Information Printing Program (VIPP)

VIPP is a Xerox print language built on PostScript that supports the full range of Xerox printers. It is a "higher level" print format that allows color output to run at faster speeds. With VIPP, Dialogue can use pre-ripped objects to produce high-volume, color output at incredibly fast speeds particularly with the Xerox iGen3 color printer.

Variable Print Specification (VPS)

This module creates VPS output. VPS is a specially designed PostScript-based print language, developed by Creo, for the definition of variable information documents. Used extensively by Xerox printers, VPS is an intelligent language that provides a structured definition of the documents being processed.

VDX

Allows creation of output on Kodak NexPress printers. VDX has many of the same options already supported by PDF such as outlines, compression, binary output, encryption, and color space.

HyperText Markup Language (HTML)

This module creates HTML output, the current standard for publishing hypertext on the Web. HTML is a non-proprietary format based on SGML, and can be created and processed by a wide range of tools from simple plain text editors to sophisticated WYSIWYG authoring tools. The Dialogue HTML module supports CSS2 and XML Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), the new W3C Web standard for describing two-dimensional graphics in XML.

Portable Document Format (PDF)

The PDF module creates fully composed PDF files and therefore is searchable using Adobe Acrobat Reader (other products create each page as an image, making the PDF very large and unsearchable). Dialogue automatically builds bookmarks so documents and their components are organized and indexed. Support for the standard base 14 fonts is included, as well as the creation and inclusion of other TrueType or Adobe Type1 fonts. This guarantees the PDF output has the identical look of documents sent to other devices. Additionally, Dialogue can provide binary compression to minimize the size of files. Full color, highlight color, and black and white modes are supported.

Rich Text Format (RTF)

This module creates RTF output. RTF, the Microsoft Word format, includes formatting, font information, text color, and page layout information and can be processed by virtually all word processing programs. This is important for applications in which the output needs to be revised by customers.

Tag Image File Format (TIFF)

This module creates TIFF image output, a widely used format for storing image data. TIFF G4 is the standard format for faxing and is also used for storing documents in archival and retrieval systems. Every page is converted to a black and white bitmap and compressed using CCITT G4 compression. Output is normally one page per file.

PowerPoint

Produces HTML output specifically formatted for Microsoft PowerPoint 2000 business presentation software. Can also convert the HTML format to a .ppt file on a machine with PowerPoint installed. Producing output is a one-step process.

XML (data)

This module creates XML report data files. All data variables are available for inclusion in the report. Any DTD or schema is supported, and nested hierarchies are repeated based on the size of the array variable.

XML (composed)

This module allows the creation of composed XML that can be changed into many presentation formats because it is created in the Dialogue Exchange Format (DXF). DXF format is based on the W3C standard XSL-FO (eXtensible Stylesheet LanguageFormatting Objects) and, as such, completely specifies text placement, font, and other attributes.

XML (content)

This module uses an Exstream Software published XML schema and creates an XML file that contains all page and document composition content. The content is created without formatting features such as fonts, color, X-Y coordinates, and so on. The purpose of this module is to mine content from components like text, tables, charts, images, and so on, that are output from the page design. The order of these components is presented in the order of composition and inclusion in the page design. As with other PDLs, you can include search keys, which are generated as XML comment records embedded inside the XML (content) output.

Real-time

Dialogue Real-time is an on-demand document service solution that integrates with an enterprise's existing message layers and custom-built systems, or WebVerse interactive systems, to produce fully personalized documents in real time. Real-time works with existing systems by "listening" to the message layer for system requests that are generated by users or triggered by pre-defined system rules. When a transaction request is detected, Dialogue "wakes up" and composes the requested document on demand using the data provided or from the instructed locations. The personalized document is transmitted back to the message layer via Dialogue connectors, making it immediately available for handoff to the system where the request originated. Real-time offers customers, prospects, and customer service representatives greater convenience and self-service capabilities by allowing them to submit online requests for account information and other real-time, electronic documents such as quotes, service inquiries, and other documents.

Application Query Service

The Application Query Service module is an interactive document service that allows a realtime application to query a Dialogue package file to obtain:

WebVerse

WebVerse allows business users to rapidly build and deploy web applications so that CSRs, sales agents, and even prospects or customers themselves can fulfill on-demand requests for personalized documents accurately, consistently, and in real time. Data collected interactively from the prospect or customer can be used to build documents for immediate delivery or can be queued for batch processing by production print/mail systems.

WebVerse Server

WebVerse server executes the processes designed with Dialogue Designer, manages user sessions, serves forms specified by interactive processes, manages multiple Dialogue engines for preview and local printing, and provides management and reporting functions. The server is built on a J2EE application server platform, with initial support for InfoPrint Solutions Company WebSphere, BEA WebLogic, SunOne, Macromedia JRun, and Apache Tomcat. This platform provides a number of back-end services (such as security, load balancing, caching, connection pooling, thread pooling, and fault tolerance) that ensure reliability, scalability, and performance. This architecture can be scaled to support thousands of users, while ensuring quality of service.