Cruise Through Your Day with 3 Ways to Get More Done

Here at IOI, we talk to customers. A lot. We attend industry conferences, host webinars and live events, and speak on the phone and in person with them on a weekly basis. And in all these conversations, it almost always comes down to this:

“We really, REALLY need to get more done.”

Whether it’s about boosting efficiency, getting to market faster, minimizing errors, or improving the customer experience, everyone wants to get more done. Fortunately, we can help make that happen.

We’ve just put together some cool information to help our customers get the most out of their production workflow, brand management, and marketing communications processes—oh, and the best part is that it’s FREE.

So check this out:

1. IOI White Paper: Marketing Automation Solutions:  Five Steps to Achieving Maximum ROI - Automation solutions are being adopted by more and more organizations. Due to complex hybrid technology solutions however, integrating an existing environment into a new workflow process can be challenging. This free IOI white paper will show you how to audit and analyze processes, automate manual tasks, use Dynamic Routing to produce cost-effectively at a higher volume, with better consistency. You’ll also find out easy ways to drive adoption & onboard users. Request your copy today.

2. Chicago Lunch & Learn: Investing in Brand Equity through Marketing Automation– Your brand is everything. See how top brands take advantage of marketing automation technologies and production best practices to boost sales and customer loyalty while reducing costs. Learn how to take control of your brand across channels - from local, targeted campaigns to global media. Join your enterprise brand marcom and advertising production peers at a free IO Integration Lunch & Learn Workshop at Hotel71 in Chicago on Tuesday, June 26 at 10am. Register now and get entered for a chance to win an iPad.

3. Leave it to the Experts - Save 50%:  Let IO Integration Professional Services handle your problems while you enjoy a 3-martini lunch or your favorite herbal tea.  New customers get 50% off a Productivity Discovery session with IO Integration’s Workflow Experts on site with your organization.  We’ll come in and analyze your marketing production workflow, identifying key areas for automation and best practices, and show you how to get more done, faster, with less drain on your marketing resources.

Now, roll-up your sleeves and get to it!

Employee Highlight - Andrew Burke

Andrew Burke

I was born in South Africa (I really miss my pet lion) and moved to the UK 13 years ago to be able to travel and get back to my ancestral roots. I currently live in Upminster on the edge of greater London.  I am a fairly new proud father of a 6 month old Halloween baby girl. Both my wife and I are huge scuba diving fans, in fact we met on a Red Sea “live aboard” about 3 years ago. That being said, I am most comfortable underwater swimming with the sharks, not that I get much diving in right now that I am a dedicated dad, I don't think snorkeling in the bath counts.

I studied electronic engineering in South Africa, and my first UK job was restricted due to my Visa so I had to work in another field. I started as an engineer with an Apple Repair center, where I got my first taste of Macs, IRIX , SOLARIS etc.

My second job was for a creative house on the support team, this was my first exposure to Xinet and Dalim. From here I joined a UK Xinet Integrator where I met and worked with Gary Fisher and Becky Colman (IOI UK.) I implemented the first line support desk and gained further exposure on both the hardware and software systems.  I have now joined IO from 'Group FMG' where I will be assisting IT by dealing with any escalated second line support  issues, system administration, software development and integration of our own products within the production workflow.

I enjoy watching most sports and played many myself, namely Rugby, water polo, basketball, volleyball, cricket  and ….. Soccer ;) Also when time allows I do try to fit in some BF3 PC gaming.

Tech Corner: DALIM ES client side troubleshooting

 

 

 

 

 

Do you get reports from clients & end users complaining they can’t access ES?

If so, the problem may not be with ES or your server.  Using basic troubleshooting, you may be able to identify and resolve the user issue quickly without needing to log a ticket.

When the problem is first reported, ask some basic questions:

1. How are they trying to access the site? Are they using an emailed link, bookmark or typing in the address?
2. Does the user see the reported problem before or after trying to authenticate?
3. Is this a new user?  Have they successfully accessed this site before?
4. Using the user’s link or URL, plus their login details, can you also see the issue they are reporting?

For new & existing users, there are a number of problems they could come across & a range of things to check. Here are a couple of common ones:

1. If the user is brand new, it may simply be that the user may not know how to access the site correctly.

Check the page they are going to and that their login details are correct.

2. Emailed links, when used, showing either ‘page not found’ error, or a blank page:                    

If a user forwards a link they have been emailed, some email client software will line wrap the long URL, and add > at the start of each line.  If this happens to an ES link, it will be broken & the user will get an error in their browser or a blank page when they try to use it.

For example:  

Good link:

http://jo.bloggs.company.com/Esprit/abc/123/abc/123456789/xyz/125792/test.1234567

Broken link:

>http://jo.bloggs.company.com/Esprit/abc/123/abc/123456789/xyz/125792/te

>st.1234567

In this case, suggest they ask their colleague to resend the link.  Copying & pasting the link into a new mail, rather than just forwarding on will get around the issue above.  If this isn’t possible, the user could paste the URL into the browser address bar, removing any additional > characters.

3. Users report they can log into ES, but not open files to view & approve
ES requires a user to have access to a web browser running Java& Flash browser plugins.  They also need to be on a connection that allows traffic through ports 80 (web) &8080 (Java).  If they do not have the correct plugins installed & enabled, or don’t have access to ports 80 & 8080 it is likely they will be able to log into the system, but not be able to see large previews of pages when they click on them.

As the user you are speaking to may not have the knowledge or access to check plugins installed      etc. Run through these basic questions, to help diagnose where the problem is:

1. Using the same login details, but a different PC or Mac, does the user still have the same issue?
If they do, the problem may be in one of two areas:

• If all of the PCs or Macs are configured by IT to be the same, it may be that none of the browsers at that site have the necessary plugins or access.  Ask their IT to check & update the browser plugins to be the latest available for the browser they are running.
•  Also, ask them to ensure traffic is allowed through ports 8080 & 80.

 If the user doesn’t experience the issue on other PCs or Macs:

• The cause may be a plugin or browser issue. As before, ask IT to make sure the browser plugins are up to date.
• Also check the browser the user has on their Mac or PC. Try to find what is different between the machine that does work & the machine that doesn't.

Things to check are:
Operating system version
Browser version
Do they have any browser security enabled that may hinder access?
Advise your user's IT team of the differences and what ES requires client side to be accessible.

What should you do next if the problem still occurs after the client’s IT have followed your advice, updated plugins etc and have also allowed traffic through their firewall on ports 80 & 8080?

1. Before anything else, ask the user to clear their browser cache, as the problem may be fixed, but the user is looking at the error/page stored by their browser.
2. If the problem persists, open a new ticket with us. Let us know what the issue is and what you have tried so far.  Even if you have not fixed the user issue, you will have collected lots of useful information to help us make a faster diagnosis.

for any additional information  or technical support for DALIM ES please feel free to contact our technical support team at support@iointegration.com

InPress Swiss Army Knife for Xinet - New Releases!

Product News

InPress has released several updates for the following products:

InPress Systems develops tools that add functionality to and expand the user experience of Xinet® WebNative® Suite and FullPress.

If you use Xinet® WebNative® Suite, InPress Systems’ extensive foundation in integration services and expertise with digital prepress workflow combine to deliver tools that help you make the most of your digital asset management solution. By helping you strengthen client relationships, expand service offerings, and engage prospective clients, InPress solutions directly contribute to improving your bottom line results. You can learn more about InPress solutions, get a demo, or get detailed release notes and download updates here http://www.inpress.se/.

How to use SSH Tunneling to bypass remote connection issues

Tech Corner contributed by Lou Monaghan

Let's say we'd like to change DALiM TWiST WEBLiNK service settings on server twist64. By default, the setup page is only accessible by a web browser running on the WEBLiNK server with WEBLiNK user "super" at http://twist64:8080/tfront/index.html. 

We can use SSH tunneling to allow us to connect to the WEBLiNK service from a web browser running on our computer.
We need the following to create the SSH Tunnel:
1) A terminal/ssh client application. The Linux and OSX operating systems have built in clients. PuTTY is a popular freeware ssh client that is available for the Windows operating system.
2) A valid user and password for the server we are attempting to connect to.
3) The SSH service must be running and available to us on the server we are attempting to connect to.
The first step is to make sure that SSH is available on the twist64 server by typing the following command in our SSH client:
nc -zv twist64 22
If we receive the message "Connection to twist64 22 port [tcp/ssh] succeeded!" then we can create our tunnel by typing the following command in our SSH client.
ssh -L 8080:localhost:8080 userName@twist64
Once we've entered our password, we are logged onto the twist64 server as userName and most importantly we have established a secure tunnel between our local port 8080 and port 8080 on twist64.
Now we can launch a web browser on our computer and go to:
http://localhost:8080/tfront/index.html
When we log into WEBLiNK as the user "super" we are able to access the setup page, even though we're connecting from a remote location.
What's going on here?
Our SSH tunnel is redirecting all requests on our computer's port 8080 to port 8080 on the twist64 server through the SSH tunnel. The twist64 server considers these requests as coming from itself because the requests are being directed to it from it's own SSH service.
As you can see SSH tunneling is a convenient tool to have at our disposal. The above example only touches the surface of all that SSH tunneling is capable of, but it's a great starting point.
 

If you have any questions or require additional assistance please contact support@iointegration.com.

Live (OK, not really) from Henry Stewart DAM New York!

Contributed by Damian Diaz: Well, all I can say is WOW. Just got back from DAM NY, and I have to say that it really surpassed all my expectations. You may have seen some of the photos we posted on our Facebook page; if not, go ‘Like’ our page and check them out!

It looked like attendance was way up this year, which was great for networking—not to mention the overall vibe. We also saw a lot of attendees from industries outside the traditional DAM “box,” like healthcare, insurance, and the arts.

One thing we learned at DAM NY was that moving forward, it looks like services are going to take center stage in the industry. And that’s exciting because it means that our IOI Professional Services will be able to help ever more organizations incorporate DAM into their existing workflow processes.

What about you—did you go to DAM NY? What tell us what you thought in the comments below!

Automating Marketing Workflows: 5 Steps to Easy Street

OK, you've put it off as long as you can. . .

But you know it will help slap productivity into shape across the board, so you gotta get to it. Yes, it's time to automate. Let's take a look at those marketing workflows.

The good news is, implementing change is really not all that difficult. In just 5 easy steps, you can not only improve processes, you can also reinforce everyone's vision of you as a genius of the highest order. Here's how:

1. Get the Lowdown: Take a look at your current processes, and document them so you can call out where the weaknesses or obvious flaws are. Be aware that technical requirements (ICC profiles, specific output formats, or approval order, etc.) and business requirements will need to be addressed differently.

2. Automate Repetitive Steps: Look for areas that are manual and repetitive - these are simple to automate and have huge potential for productivity and quality improvement. This can significantly reduce the risk of human error created when users have to remember specific steps, or make decisions that are beyond their areas of expertise. Automation also minimizes the requirement for hands-on traffic personnel, and enables them to re-direct their efforts back to being creative and away from preparing files and physically moving documents for approval between departments.

3. Streamline Workflows - Got dynamic routing? Based on your defined business rules, it could really make a big difference in automating collateral lifecycle flow. Get it.

4. Get Everyone Up to Speed: Share the new workflow processes with stakeholders and users; make sure to identify key evangelists who will be instrumental in driving adoption of the new world order.

5. Lather, Rinse, Repeat: You're done, but now is not the time to relax. Keep refining the process to include new innovations as they emerge so that you can keep your creatives creating, rather than being slaves to outdated, task-based processes.

Every file, project, or client is unique, but the related workflow processes donít have to be. With these five simple steps, you can take frustration and delays out of the equation, and enable everyone to keep doing what they do best. Get started by automating the approval process and production tasks.