Concentra

Web2print integrated in Concentra Media self service portal

The Concentra Group is a multimedia company operating at the Belgian and Dutch market.

In order to reduce costs and to speed up production, Concentra developed a Self Service Portal for structured template based production – directly generated by the end users. Projects like classified ads, obituaries, adverts for real estate, … are well suited projects with a clear ROI.

Challenge

With the current system – based on PDF-lib – Concentra experienced the need for a more advanced solution:

• time to market – quick deployment of new projects
• less IT development for creating templates
• a more user friendly (WYSIWYG) approach
• operated by end-users without any training
• control on different objects (fonts – size – positioning – scaling – …)
• ability to change and develop according to own specific demands
• easy integration within the existing Portal
• image quality control (preferably integrate with a DAM system)
• secure, stable and quick document generation – the output should be an Indesign file – allowing modifications by the Concentra editors before print

Best Practice

2imagine has developed a web2print solution with a WYSIWYG interface (in Adobe Flex). It allows the end user to modify the template within a limited and controlled way. Template development is easy and quick: a standard InDesign document is uploaded in the admin section of the 2imagine Web2print application.

For each InDesign object rules and permissions are assigned:

• moving X and Y axis
• editing allowed (Yes or No)
• formating allowed (Yes or No)
• which fonts are allowed for that given field
• which type size(s) are allowed
• scaling allowed (Yes or No)
• tooltip: the text the end user will see for mouse over on each object

Integration within the Concentra Self Service Portal is achieved through the available API. This is an open system using webservices, and highly configurable: Concentra launches the application and sends the prefilled data (from their backend database) to the 2imagine web2print environment. The Flex interface is opened in an AJAX-based window on top of the Concentra Portal. After the submit, 2imagine sends a webservice with result parameters and even the entered data in the advert, back to Concentra. The user does not see the switch between the two applications.