Roanoke College  |  Raleigh County Schools  |  Rowe Furniture  |  Odessa College

 Roanoke College  

Since the conversion to the Datatel software system in June of 1998, the Registrar's Office of Roanoke College has implemented the use of many forms through the FormuLaser/FormuSeal programs. FormuLaser and FormuSeal have provided Roanoke College with three important savings.

• Custom design of many Datatel forms, without the use of programming time from the Information Services staff allowing them more time to work on more important tasks associated with the implementation.
• With the use of FormuSeal mailers, substantial savings were afforded at grade time. The FormuSeal process saved hours of stuffing and hand sealing. The turnaround time of getting grades out is much quicker, a very important consideration to the students and parents.
• With the use of FormuLaser, they were able to run all forms on either white laser paper or plain security paper. They no longer have to purchase expensive forms. This one item saved Roanoke College a great deal of money.

 Raleigh County Schools

Raleigh County Schools purchased our FS-11 FormuSeal Folder/Sealer and software system. The system has been operational since September 1998 and has proven to be fully compatible with their WVEIS AS400 system in preparing all forms associated with payroll and vendor payments, Federal and State tax reporting requirements. The FormuSeal product and application has provided Raleigh County Schools with many quality solutions, saving time and expense.

• All checks are prepared on stock forms – eliminating the need for special checks that have been pre-numbered and MICR encoded.
• Providing one-step process for check preparation and official’s signature, while maintaining proper security.
• Employee appreciation of privacy of their payroll information provided in a self-mailer.
• Accounts payable checks are self-mailers, saving time in processing payments and also providing an informational copy for the individual vendor’s file which is a big help with the annual audit review.

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 Rowe Furniture  

Rowe Furniture has implemented a new Law Label product designed by Source4 to produce a total production label solution.

Law Label is a tyvek material run on an inexpensive thermal printer which combines warranty tags, service tags, manual count tags, shipping labels, storage locator tickets, frame and fabric tickets and piecework payroll tags all on one production piece. Just about any tag or label could be used in this system.

With the use of a thermal printer, Law Label design software and a twelve inch tyvek production tag, the need for production of seven different tags and labels was eliminated.

The only piece remaining on the furniture is a permanent Law Label. The Law Label is either sewn in or stapled to the frame and all other tags and labels are included in the one production ticket which increases productivity and saves money.

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 Odessa College   

Situation:
Odessa College, located in Odessa, Texas, is a two-year institution with a student body of 5,000 degree-seeking students and over 11,000 continuing education students attending each year. Like many other higher education institutions, Odessa continually examines ways to reduce costs and improve business processes across campus. One such area they identified for improvement was in document output.

Odessa College used pre-printed forms for a large number of documents to achieve a professional look and feel, and format of documents such as IRS 1098 forms, class rosters, and payroll checks. Odessa IT managers had to securely store the pre-printed forms, and changes made to forms lead to large amounts of waste. Additionally, the risk that printed information being placed on the wrong forms existed - costing the institution time and money.

Odessa wanted to increase its document output capabilities and eliminate costly pre-printed forms that were run on inefficient, outdated old-style line printers. The College also wanted to create a tighter connection with data and information within its Datatel Colleague system and the document output process.

Solution:
Odessa turned to Source4, provider of the FormuSolutions™ product suite, to solve its document output business process. FormuSolutions™ streamlines the way institutions print business forms, mailers, labels, invoices, checks, and more. The College integrated Colleague and FormuLaser™, a component of the suite, and instantly gained additional options that changed the way in which forms are printed. Odessa has now reduced costs, improved efficiencies, and streamlined document processing using FormuSolutions wide array of laser-based solutions.

FormLaser™ software converts multi-part continuous forms to single-part laser forms without reprogramming. It re-maps all current data, and merges it with the appropriate electronic form, signature(s), MICR, and logos.

Through the Datatel-Source4 partnership, Colleague information is easily merged into FormuLaser, to quickly and effortlessly produce professional printed documents ready, for distribution at a lower cost.

"With no changes required to our host application, the solution from Datatel and Source4 provides us with a relatively simple means of taking current Colleague reports and translating them into customized professional-looking laser output documents," said Chuck Everett, Database/System Administrator at Odessa College. "Not only do we save money and man-hours with this forms generating system, we've found that our options are limitless as to what we can design."

Odessa's staff formats each document prior to printing, and staff members easily update forms to adapt for changes due to regulations or even departmental preferences. This allows the current staff to easily maintain forms.

Odessa's staff prints documents easier now because they no longer have to match form numbers with pre-printed stock numbers. They also save time by eliminating the need to load and unload specialized forms, and can utilize the multiple paper stocks that are pre-loaded in the printer trays. "Our staff has easy access to the many assorted types of paper stock we use for different purposes," said Everett.

Results:
Odessa College has seen positive outcomes from offices across campus since deploying FormuLaser. The integration between Colleague and FormuLaser has provided unparalleled ease-of-use for Odessa's staff. The two systems working together enable Odessa's staff to utilize the content-rich data in Colleague, and produce professional looking documents directly from personal computers.

The payroll office alone estimates that they have saved more than 60 man-hours per month. This was made possible by procedural changes in the way account numbers could easily be assigned to checks prior to printing-a direct result of integrating Colleague and FormuLaser.

"The best thing about the solution is that any changes can be easily handled, in-house, without wasted stock," said Everett.

Odessa has also initiated changes in the ways they provide information such as student final grades. For example, students now view their grades online via WebAdvisor, Datatel's Web-access solution for higher education. Now the College no longer prints and mail grades to students, further reducing their printing costs.

"Odessa now has the solution that is easy for everyone to use," said Everett. "Without the integration between Datatel and Source4, our jobs would be much harder."

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