Vasion has integrated data capture, e-form creation, automated workflows, e-signatures,
office print and back-office output management, into a single cloud-native automation platform
Vasion is perhaps best known for its SaaS print management platform PrinterLogic, which supports over 12,000 customers worldwide, managed over two million printers and 15 billion print jobs in 2023, and boasts a 97% customer retention rate.
PrinterLogic is a true cloud-native solution that doesn’t require VPN connections and is designed to address customer requirements in all printing environments.
“There are typically four different types of printing environments – centralised and decentralised print, application print, and specialist print (i.e. label printers),” Simon Hill, Managing Director, EMEA & APAC explained. “Typically, these four printing environments are managed by separate products, licenses, suppliers, and departmental teams within a customer’s organisation. With PrinterLogic, resellers can manage all four environments with a single SaaS solution. The end result – reduce the end customers’ costs as well as the cost to serve, lessen the print-related burden on IT, and deliver an improved end-user experience by enabling self-service printer installation through an easy to use portal.”
Office printers and MFPs
PrinterLogic enables organisations to eliminate on-premise print servers, seamlessly deploy printers without complicated scripts and GPOs, manage print queues, off-network printing, mobile print, and secure pull-printing, from a single web-based console. Thus, empowering MPS providers to better support customers’ needs in traditional centralised printing environments whilst benefiting from a recurring revenue stream.
However, not all printing devices fall under MPS contracts, in fact, according to IDC, almost three-quarters of printers are unmanaged. “So, if we consider office printers sitting in geographically spread locations, often because of the number of people, the need for print is high,
but the volume output isn’t significant enough for a traditional MPS contract. Or indeed with the rise of shadow IT many printers have just been purchased on an ad-hoc basis. With single-function printers, a reseller can’t log in to do a remote fix and often, sending an engineer to physically fix one device in a remote location can be cost-prohibitive, but the reality is that 75% of printers are unmanaged, and that’s a significant lost revenue opportunity,” Hill said.
PrinterLogic’s cloud-native serverless print management solution enables seamless driver deployment for large volumes of printing devices that exist outside of the MPS contract – no scripting, no GPOs, no servers, just direct IP printing. For example, PrinterLogic manages 11,500 print queues across 2,500 retail stores for a large high street retail customer whose 60-strong head office printer fleet (which represents less and 1% of the total fleet) falls under a managed print service.
“As long as a printer sits on the network, it’s visible, which means it can be managed and resellers can leverage that insight to right-size and optimise their customers’ fleets, continuing to add value,” he added.
Output management
PrinterLogic also manages mainframe data streams and applications like SAP and Oracle as well as healthcare systems such as Epic and Cerner, bridging the gap between front-end printing and back-end systems.
The software’s output management capability connects distributed systems and applications to provide complete visibility into print activity and document distribution – ensuring documents are delivered to the right place, at the right time, and in the right format.
“The ability to streamline printing between SAP systems and office, warehouse or production printers and enable all print queues and all devices to be managed from a single console, provides lots of opportunity within vertical markets including healthcare, finance, manufacturing and logistics,” Hill continued.
“With our solution’s output management capability, customers can centralise control, enhance security and ensure compliance for critical print and document processes from a single, easy- to-use platform. This integration ensures smooth data flow across all business- critical applications, leveraging customers’ existing investments and significantly improving workflow efficiency.”
Specialised print
Alongside office MFPs and printers, the PrinterLogic software enables thermal printers, such as Zebra label printers to be managed through the same cloud portal. “In certain sectors like logistics, thermal printers can outnumber office devices two-fold,” Hill said, adding: “With PrinterLogic, we can push the drivers out for all of these devices as well – in fact there isn’t a printing device within a partners’ installed base that we can’t support on the driver management piece.”
A single AI-powered platform
The new Vasion Automate platform harnesses the power of PrinterLogic to connect data, processes, systems, and people. This single AI-powered platform supports organisations’ digital transformation by enabling efficient information capture, automating manual tasks, and transforming workflows to enhance productivity and operational agility.
He continued: “Data is the lifeblood of every organisation and there shouldn’t be a data workflow or a data stream in a business that wouldn’t touch our new Vasion Automate platform.
So, if you’re in the channel and you’re selling print, you’re making output possible for your customers, then if we take scanners, the conversation moves over to input. With the Vasion Automate platform, you can manage the four printing environments and build in the ability to create forms, workflows and signature on the back-end with the same product – so if a document needs to be signed, the end-user doesn’t have to step out of the solution, it can be signed in the same place, on a single screen and then pushed through to the next stage of the workflow.”
Automated digital and print solutions
Vasion Automate is a complete cloud-native automation platform that combines the advanced print and output management capabilities of the PrinterLogic software to also include:
- Simplified information capture. Capture capabilities enable users to seamlessly and efficiently convert paper documents into digital files. Scan from an MFP, scanner or mobile device, utilise intelligent document capture with AI, OCR, and ICR technology, to quickly digitise data, streamline data extraction, and automatically categorise it all. This ensures that both digital and physical documents are easily captured and organised.
- E-forms. An intuitive drag-and-drop form builder enables users to build fully customisable forms tailored to business needs, automatically convert existing PDFs into fillable web forms, gather and securely share data with existing applications as required.
- Workflow automation. Vasion Automate’s all-in-one, no-code workflow builder enables users to create workflows that remove manual processes, repetitive tasks
and unnecessary delays. It supports the seamless flow of documents and data into third-party systems and applications, eliminating information silos to ensure information moves efficiently across different parts of the business, supporting cohesive and streamlined operations. - Content automation. Advanced records management capabilities such as retention schedules, audit trail, encryption, and legal hold make it easy to streamline document-centric workflows by making them data driven workflows. Users can access all documents and data in one secure location, quickly find what they need with natural language search capabilities, and automatically maintain audit trails.
- E-signature. Users can incorporate Vasion Signature within forms to provide approvals, offer letters or waivers. The Signature feature within Vasion Automate manages the entire document lifecycle with a robust eSignature solution. It allows users to sign and send documents from any location on any device, significantly speeding up the signature process and enhancing operational efficiency.
Vasion Automate bridges the gap between printed and digital documents. If you’d like to find out more about this single, integrated solution that provides all of the tools you need to support your customers’ digital transformation from sophisticated, secure print management to intelligent data capture, workflow automation, content management, and e-Signature, billed as a simple SaaS solution that provides a recurring revenue stream, please contact tim.muckart@vasion.com
