Document Partner at the Austrian Patent Office

    Document Partner at the Austrian Patent Office

    L'Office autrichien des brevets
    The introduction of Document Partner provided the Austrian Patent Office with a simple method of composing standardised correspondence to their customers in Microsoft Word and integrating business data from Microsoft Navision and TOPAS in the correspondence.

    Initial situation: Problems with document generation

    The Austrian Patent Office sends a large number of invoices, reminders, renewal notifications and other correspondence to its customers every year. However, the previous solution for the automatic generation and preparation of Microsoft Word documents was unable to meet the wide variety of requirements demanded by different departments with regard to template creation and document generation and was earmarked for replacement by a new and more flexible system.

    The new system had to fulfil the following requirements:

    1. Processing of accounting data required for the correspondence and stored in Microsoft Navision (recipients, fees, due dates)
    2. Generation of Word documents in accordance with specifications defining content and design
    3. Filling documents with business data from Microsoft Navision
    4. Fast system availability to enable the timely handling of communication with customers

    Document Partner overview

    RUBICON had the ideal solution readily available in the form of Document Partner. Document Partner is an Output Management System that handles the following tasks in dependence on the required solution configuration:

    • Document template management
    • Generation of business documents on the basis of document templates
    • User support for document generation integrated in the relevant business processes
    • Management of document distribution to the required recipients
    • Archiving of documents in the corresponding business application, document management system or archive system

    External applications (arbitrary specialised systems) supply the business data, i.e. the document content to be mapped in Microsoft Word, in the form of XML data. Meanwhile also TOPAS, the central platform for mapping core processes and handling business cases, was connected. TOPAS supplies Document Partner with the necessary data to generate patent publications.

    Overview Document Partner

    Overview Document Partner

    Document Partner consists of the modules Document Partner Designtime and Document Partner Runtime.

    Document Partner Designtime provides the following components for creating and managing document templates:

    • Repository Manager serves the creation and management of document templates
    • Designer provides the working environment in which the content and appearance of document templates (MS Word and MS Excel) are created and edited
    • Designtime accesses various Document Partner web services
    • Finished templates and configured correspondence items are stored in a database

    Document Partner Runtime uses the components integrated in Document Partner to:

    • Receive business data from external applications and link it to the corresponding templates
    • Generate, distribute and archive the appropriate output

    The solution: efficient generation of standardised documents

    To enable the rapid implementation of a sustainable and easily manageable solution, RUBICON took over the creation and management of document templates in the beginning and operated the corresponding Document Partner design environment required for the purpose. Meanwhile it is operated in the infrastructure environment of the Austrian Patent Office. To generate documents and fill them with data the Document Partner standalone rendering component is used.

    The result

    During this initial step a highly practical solution was implemented for the Austrian Patent Office in just two weeks:

    • Intelligent generation and management of standardised document templates
    • Efficient generation and filling of standardised documents with data
    • Adherence to the schedule and budget
    In just a very short time, RUBICON provided us with a flexible solution ideally tailored to our needs in the form of Document Partner. Furthermore, Document Partner separates the specialised application from the output solution so that we no longer need to adapt the document templates with every new release of the specialised application. Document Partner therefore basically pays for itself.

    Head of IT at the Austrian Patent Office

    Screenshots

    Document Partner Repository Manager

    Document Partner Repository Manager

    Document Word-Designer

    Document Word-Designer

     
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