Barr EOM
Barr Enterprise Output Manager (Barr EOM) provides a comprehensive solution for the management of your organization’s document output. Barr EOM consolidates input from multiple platforms and applications and centrally manages resources and documents, providing end-to-end tracking and reporting.
Barr EOM’s design is based on the belief that although documents can travel directly from origin to destination, there are considerable benefits to routing them through a centralized system. Barr EOM is therefore built around these main concepts:
Maximize the number of sources from which you can receive documents.
Provide greater control over documents than can be found in other products.
Manage and expand the number of document destinations.
Insure the security and integrity of documents throughout the send/receive cycle.
Produce a completely integrated audit trail and accounting functionality in order to monitor and control your costs.
Supply the tools necessary to convert document formats based upon the final destination.
Provide an observable process to a variety of audiences including administrators, print operators, end users, and management.
No matter where your documents originate, you will find that receiving them into Barr EOM occurs seamlessly, thanks to the product’s many input options. If the source is a mainframe, you can choose between RJE, NJE, Enterprise Extender, Bus & Tag, ESCON, or IP. From IP sources, Barr EOM can receive documents via LPD, Socket, or FTP connections. Other input options include network folders, email, web uploads, and Windows applications. Regardless of your source, Barr EOM receives all available document properties, which can then be used to determine the respective document’s path through the system.
Once documents arrive into Barr EOM, all of their properties are logged into the product’s database. What happens next depends on the business rules configured by administrators. If no routing rules are configured, then the documents are collected for manual routing, which can be done through our intuitive user interface. Most of our customers, however, prefer to take advantage of Barr EOM’s advanced dynamic routing functionality. Using a plain English interface, product administrators can use all of the document’s properties (and even the document’s contents) to dictate where it should be sent. These rules also control whether a document needs to undergo any transformations before it is routed to the final destination.
There are often cases where the document origin is not compatible with the document destination. Most common scenarios include AFP or Metacode files that need to be printed on PCL printers, print documents that need to be posted as PDFs on the web, large reports that need to be burst into smaller pieces before being sent to various recipients, and so on. Barr EOM includes comprehensive support for converting and repurposing documents.
Once Barr EOM performs any necessary transformations, documents are ready to be routed to the final destination. Barr EOM supports a variety of destinations including network folders, FTP, email and, of course, printers. In the case of printers, these can either be added manually or through Barr EOM’s auto-discovery capabilities. When Barr EOM recognizes a printer it logs its capabilities (color, duplex, PCL, and so on.) and monitors it continuously. This monitoring extends beyond the basic, checking values such as the level of toner or whether there is paper in the trays. Proactive monitoring prevents documents from being sent to unavailable printers and instantly alerts help desk staff of problems even before a document is sent to the device.
Administrators can use the Barr EOM Console to centrally monitor all sources, documents, transformation processes, and destinations. The intuitive user interface provides a complete, real-time picture of everything that is happening in a company’s output processes.
In addition to real-time monitoring, Barr EOM supports a wide array of notification options. Administrators can choose to be notified should any errors occur while documents are being received, converted, or routed. Additionally, they can choose to be notified if problems arise with monitored printers. End users can also be alerted about the status of the documents they submit or are responsible for. Finally, Barr EOM gives management access to reports that encompass all activity, including cost allocation to projects or departments.