RE:[sap-dev] Outsourcing Mass Printing
Posted by
Admin at
|
Share this post:
|
|
0 Comments
 | Posted by james.r.cutchall (Senior SAP Developer) on Apr 2 at 8:42 PM |  Mark as helpful |
Krisha - we are using Bill-Trust - they are based in New Jersey but have several print/distribution-centers in the US. We FTP (encrypted) files to them in several formats because we started the project while different documents were in different phases of completion.
So far it has been a good experience, they are very responsive, and skilled at what they do. Our internal support services also breathed a sign of relief now that they don't have to print all this crap. In addition to 120K statements per month we also do an incredible 20K invoices every DAY! You can imagine the relief.
Output formats - we tired (and are using) a couple of different techniques as I mentioned above but the best and most efficient are good old delimited flat files. Parsing spooler output is messy and slow. The advantage is that you can print your documents locally if desired, providing you've already built your forms. This is what we did for statements since we had already built the SAPscript and were printing them internally before we hooked up with Bill-Trust.
I also built a SmartForm for invoices, a copy of prg RLB_INVOICE, but two months before Go-Live they told me I had to scrap my invoice. I figured I would use the existing SmartForm for internal use but harvest all the invoice data and output it to a delimited file for Bill-Trust because I did not want to deal with the spooler output again. Almost all the invoice data/fields you need are handed to you on a silver platter in the structure that RLB_INVOICE uses so it only took a couple of weeks to write the code that spit it out. Invoicing is very fast now since there is no rendering of SmartForm, PDF, etc. Of course, Bill-Trust charged us development time for duplicating our invoice layouts but they would do that anyway. It's not like you can just send them rendered PDF's and they print them - although I'm sure they would do this if you insisted, but they also need key data fields so they can do their magic. For example, they organize them by zip-code and forward the data again to their different distribution centers. This speeds up delivery and reduces postage costs nicely. They also provide electronic invoices like email and fax, a web-site that our customers can go to to view and reprint their own invoices as-well as indicate if they want electronic invoices in the future - so you can see why they need/want raw data.
If I had it to do over again, I would write all my forms, sapscripts, etc to use a custom ztbls (unique to individual forms) that could easily lend itself to delimited output. Keep as much code as possible, if not ALL, out of forms! Do all the calculations, look-ups, etc in custom FORM modules, populate your structure, and then just print the fields in your forms like you were picking eggs out of a basket. If I had done that with invoices I would have one invoice "engine" that built the data and simply handed it to my form and I could easily write that to flat files as well as use it for other invoices. Presently I have to make changes to the Bill-Trust extraction code as well as my SmartForm - big mistake. (We have a project slated to consolidate FOUR different invoicing prgs to all use the same output/data we now use for Bill-Trust.)
Finally, writing to a flat file for invoices was not practical because we have to run multiple sessions by customer number-ranges in order to get it done in several hours. Multiple jobs could not write to one flat file simultaneously so I added an intermediate z-table that simply holds my delimited records. The table key is a record-type (H=Header, D?tail, T=Totals, X=TextElements, etc...) and the invoice#. After that comes the delimited data. Then we have another program that simply extracts this already delimited data out of my intermediate table, encrypts it, and FTP's it to Bill-Trust. I shared my structures with Bill-Trust so they can easily parse out the delimited data and plug it into their own form for printing. (We also have a little utility prg to help manage the intermediate z-table. This includes look-ups, re-extractions to flat files, tallies, and Purge. At over a million records per week, it will slow down invoicing if it becomes too large. I let go for two months and discovered it added a couple of hours at 9 million recs. Now I
purge it every week or two.)
I can't tell you what the long-term experience will be however as Bill-Trust becomes more and more hooked into our business. They now also want to accept payment from our customers and use ACH to send us payment/bank data - several days after the checks have cleared of course! This all is sold under the pretense of "customer service" but make no mistake - they are in like flint! In addition, we are also looking at implementing FSCM and the Web portal and these provide all these same customer services. However I am sure we do not want to go back to printing the documents internally ourselves again.
I can't tell you what the long-term experience will be however as Bill-Trust becomes more and more hooked into our business. They now also want to accept payment from our customers and use ACH to send us payment/bank data - several days later after the checks have cleared of course! This all is sold under the pretense of "customer service" but make no mistake - they are in like flint! In addition, we are also looking at implementing FSCM and the Web portal and these provide all these same customer services. However I am sure we do not want to go back to printing the documents internally ourselves.
---------------Original Message---------------
From: james.r.cutchall
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 7:55 PM
Subject: Outsourcing Mass Printing
> Does anyone have any experience outsourcing mass printing of documents from SAP to some outside source like say Kinko's or something? We have too much printing to handle internally, for example our monthly Statement run is over 120k pgs and takes several days to print and stuff.
>
> We have just started researching this idea with a company called Billtrust. I have not spoken to them myself yet but my questions include things like:
>
> 1. Is the ROI really worth it?
>
> 2. How do you get your files to them and in what format? (OTF/PDF/etc...)
>
> 3. I assume you print from SAP to a spool-file but how do you get that file to the provider? (email/FTP/etc...)
>
> 4. What about the 2gig spool-limit, wouldn't you have to send multiple files?
>
> 5. When rendering the spool-file do you have to use a print-driver, like say LaserJet, that the provided also has?
> Any experience(s) would be helpful?
>
> Thank you.
__.____._ So far it has been a good experience, they are very responsive, and skilled at what they do. Our internal support services also breathed a sign of relief now that they don't have to print all this crap. In addition to 120K statements per month we also do an incredible 20K invoices every DAY! You can imagine the relief.
Output formats - we tired (and are using) a couple of different techniques as I mentioned above but the best and most efficient are good old delimited flat files. Parsing spooler output is messy and slow. The advantage is that you can print your documents locally if desired, providing you've already built your forms. This is what we did for statements since we had already built the SAPscript and were printing them internally before we hooked up with Bill-Trust.
I also built a SmartForm for invoices, a copy of prg RLB_INVOICE, but two months before Go-Live they told me I had to scrap my invoice. I figured I would use the existing SmartForm for internal use but harvest all the invoice data and output it to a delimited file for Bill-Trust because I did not want to deal with the spooler output again. Almost all the invoice data/fields you need are handed to you on a silver platter in the structure that RLB_INVOICE uses so it only took a couple of weeks to write the code that spit it out. Invoicing is very fast now since there is no rendering of SmartForm, PDF, etc. Of course, Bill-Trust charged us development time for duplicating our invoice layouts but they would do that anyway. It's not like you can just send them rendered PDF's and they print them - although I'm sure they would do this if you insisted, but they also need key data fields so they can do their magic. For example, they organize them by zip-code and forward the data again to their different distribution centers. This speeds up delivery and reduces postage costs nicely. They also provide electronic invoices like email and fax, a web-site that our customers can go to to view and reprint their own invoices as-well as indicate if they want electronic invoices in the future - so you can see why they need/want raw data.
If I had it to do over again, I would write all my forms, sapscripts, etc to use a custom ztbls (unique to individual forms) that could easily lend itself to delimited output. Keep as much code as possible, if not ALL, out of forms! Do all the calculations, look-ups, etc in custom FORM modules, populate your structure, and then just print the fields in your forms like you were picking eggs out of a basket. If I had done that with invoices I would have one invoice "engine" that built the data and simply handed it to my form and I could easily write that to flat files as well as use it for other invoices. Presently I have to make changes to the Bill-Trust extraction code as well as my SmartForm - big mistake. (We have a project slated to consolidate FOUR different invoicing prgs to all use the same output/data we now use for Bill-Trust.)
Finally, writing to a flat file for invoices was not practical because we have to run multiple sessions by customer number-ranges in order to get it done in several hours. Multiple jobs could not write to one flat file simultaneously so I added an intermediate z-table that simply holds my delimited records. The table key is a record-type (H=Header, D?tail, T=Totals, X=TextElements, etc...) and the invoice#. After that comes the delimited data. Then we have another program that simply extracts this already delimited data out of my intermediate table, encrypts it, and FTP's it to Bill-Trust. I shared my structures with Bill-Trust so they can easily parse out the delimited data and plug it into their own form for printing. (We also have a little utility prg to help manage the intermediate z-table. This includes look-ups, re-extractions to flat files, tallies, and Purge. At over a million records per week, it will slow down invoicing if it becomes too large. I let go for two months and discovered it added a couple of hours at 9 million recs. Now I
purge it every week or two.)
I can't tell you what the long-term experience will be however as Bill-Trust becomes more and more hooked into our business. They now also want to accept payment from our customers and use ACH to send us payment/bank data - several days after the checks have cleared of course! This all is sold under the pretense of "customer service" but make no mistake - they are in like flint! In addition, we are also looking at implementing FSCM and the Web portal and these provide all these same customer services. However I am sure we do not want to go back to printing the documents internally ourselves again.
I can't tell you what the long-term experience will be however as Bill-Trust becomes more and more hooked into our business. They now also want to accept payment from our customers and use ACH to send us payment/bank data - several days later after the checks have cleared of course! This all is sold under the pretense of "customer service" but make no mistake - they are in like flint! In addition, we are also looking at implementing FSCM and the Web portal and these provide all these same customer services. However I am sure we do not want to go back to printing the documents internally ourselves.
---------------Original Message---------------
From: james.r.cutchall
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 7:55 PM
Subject: Outsourcing Mass Printing
> Does anyone have any experience outsourcing mass printing of documents from SAP to some outside source like say Kinko's or something? We have too much printing to handle internally, for example our monthly Statement run is over 120k pgs and takes several days to print and stuff.
>
> We have just started researching this idea with a company called Billtrust. I have not spoken to them myself yet but my questions include things like:
>
> 1. Is the ROI really worth it?
>
> 2. How do you get your files to them and in what format? (OTF/PDF/etc...)
>
> 3. I assume you print from SAP to a spool-file but how do you get that file to the provider? (email/FTP/etc...)
>
> 4. What about the 2gig spool-limit, wouldn't you have to send multiple files?
>
> 5. When rendering the spool-file do you have to use a print-driver, like say LaserJet, that the provided also has?
> Any experience(s) would be helpful?
>
> Thank you.
Copyright © 2010 Toolbox.com and message author.
Toolbox.com 4343 N. Scottsdale Road Suite 280, Scottsdale, AZ 85251
Toolbox.com 4343 N. Scottsdale Road Suite 280, Scottsdale, AZ 85251
In the Spotlight
Earn Recognition for Your Contributions at Toolbox for IT. Gain Points for Community Achievements
View this thread online
Manage group e-mails
Create an FAQ on this topic
Tell us what you think
Unsubscribe from discussion
Manage group e-mails
Create an FAQ on this topic
Tell us what you think
Unsubscribe from discussion
_.____.__ 
