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Feature: PDF PostOffice in Elliott V8.2, Introduction

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Overview

Before Elliott 8.2, you could print and create PDF files by using a third-party PDF writer application and create PDF files by printing to that PDF "printer."  After Elliott 8.2, you can print and create PDF files directly without a third-party application.  

When you print a batch of invoices, let’s say 100 of them, a single PDF file will contain these 100 invoices. You obviously cannot email this PDF file to any of your customers. But if you could break this batch into 100 PDF files and automate the process of emailing these 100 PDF documents to each individual customer’s designated email, that would be a useful feature.

Our Elliott V8.2 release provides that ability -- to split certain PDF printings into separate files per document, and then to automatically email (or optionally fax) each separate PDF document to the appropriate contact.  This feature focuses on delivering your business document to your customers or vendors by creating PDF files and emailing or faxing them to the proper contact so you don't have to mail them through the post office.  Therefore, we call this feature PDF PostOffice. Not only does this speed up the delivery of your business documents, but also, the savings in postage, paper, envelopes and labor can be significant.

The following Elliott business documents can be printed using the PDF PostOffice feature:
  • Invoices (normal, duplicates from history and pickup)
  • Purchase Orders
  • A/R Statements
  • Order Acknowledgements (Laser Form Option)
  • Order Quotes (Laser Form Option)
  • RMA Acknowledgements (Laser Form Option)
PDF PostOffice sends an email or fax based on the eContacts for the Customer, Salesman, Bill-To, Ship-To, Sales Order, Vendor and Purchase Order.  In the eContact, Web tab, "Email Docs..." button, you can determine which business documents to receive on a contact-by-contact basis.  When PDF PostOffice is enabled for a particular business document, during the printing it will try to send an email to all of the contacts' email addresses, if there are any.  If not, and the fax option is turned on, and it will send a fax instead.  If no email or fax is available, then a hard copy is printed.

To implement Elliott PostOffice feature, you need to go through the following steps:
(1) Global Setup for PostOffice
Global Setup for PostOffice is documented in this article. 

(2) Management eContact to Determine Who Will Receive the PostOffice Documents
PostOffice uses all the eligible eContacts from the order (sales or purchase order),  customer, salesman, bill-to, ship-to or vendor. Since you can have multiple contacts for a customer, ship-to or vendor, you need to decide which contact will receive which PDF PostOffice documents. This is documented in the following Knowledge Base article:
http://support.elliott.com/knowledgebase/articles/1119532-feature-pdf-postoffice-in-elliott-v8-2-part-1

(3) Enable PDF PostOffice for Each Task by Login as SUPERVISOR
You don't have to use all supported PDF PostOffice documents. Even if you enable a particular PDF PostOffice document in Global Setup, it does not mean that document is set up to go. You have to set up each PDF PostOffice individually by logging in as SUPERVISOR and choosing the "enforce destination" checkbox in the Print Option window.  Logging in as SUPERVISOR will allow you to set up defaults for all users. The "Enforce Destination" checkbox will allow PDF PostOffice to work consistently for all users and prevent users from overriding settings.  This is also the time to make sure the PDF PostOffice behaves in the way you want and to make any final adjustments.  This process is documented in the following Knowledge Base article:
http://support.elliott.com/knowledgebase/articles/1120234-feature-pdf-postoffice-in-elliott-v8-2-part-2

(4) Start Using PDF PostOffice
Once the PDF PostOffice document is set up by the SUPERVISOR and the "enforcement destination" is chosen, then as each user prints that business document, the tab with "enforcement destination" will be grayed out. The document will either be emailed, faxed or printed as a hard copy on the printer if no email or fax are available.

(5) Auditing of PDF PostOffice
Once your PDF PostOffice is in production, you may have need to monitor for errors and check if the document is delivered to the proper destination.  This is documented in the following Knowledge Base article:
http://support.elliott.com/knowledgebase/articles/1120321-feature-pdf-postoffice-in-elliott-v8-2-part-3

Global Setup for PostOffice

By default, PDF PostOffice is disabled.  To enable it, you must go to System Utilities on the Elliott Control Center and select Global Setup.  From the System menu, select the PDF PostOffice pulldown.  You will see the following screen:



Complete the parameters as follows:
  1. Enable PDF PostOffice?  Enter Y to enable PDF PostOffice functionality.
  2. Shall Primary Contact Get PDF Doc By Default?  This determines whether you want your customers or vendors to opt-in for the PDF PostOffice feature.  Enter Y if you want to globally specify that the primary contact will by default be the recipients of PDF PostOffice documents.  This means no opt-in is required.  If you specify Y here, you still may individually override the default selection of a contact and/or specify additional recipients for each document type.  Enter N if you will individually specify which contacts are to receive which documents. If you want customers or vendors to opt-in for the PDF PostOffice feature, you will answer "N."
  3. Fax PDF Doc If No Email Available?  Some of your contacts may not have an email address.  Those contacts can receive these PDF PostOffice documents via fax if this paramater is set to Y and the fax email address template is specified in the next parameter.  PDF PostOffice sends faxes just like emails. You will need to have contracted an email-to-fax service, like SRFax.com in this example, to provide this ability.
  4. Fax Email Address Template The default value for this field is $ContactFax$@srfax.com. This field provides a template for constructing the email address for your email-to-fax service.  Srfax.com is just one email-to-fax service we found to work with PDF PostOffice. It is possible other email-to-fax services will work, but we are not making any recommendation and you need to do the integration testing on your own.  You will need to use the variable $ContactFax$ to specify where the fax number of the recipient goes in the email address.  
  5. Enable PDF PostOffice for COP Invoice?  Enter Y if you want to use PDF PostOffice to send COP invoices (normal, duplicates from history and pickup). This includes DYO Invoices.
  6. Enable PDF PostOffice for PO Printing?  Enter Y if you want to use PDF PostOffice to send purchase orders. This includes DYO POs.
  7. Enable PDF PostOffice for A/R Statement?  Enter Y if you want to use PDF PostOffice to send Accounts Receivable statements.  
  8. Enable PDF PostOffice for COP Order Ack?   Enter Y if you want to use PDF PostOffice to send sales order acknowledgements. This includes DYO Orders.
  9. Enable PDF PostOffice for Order Quote?   Enter Y if you want to use PDF PostOffice to send sales order quotes. This includes DYO Orders.
  10. Enable PDF PostOffice for COP RMA Ack?   Enter Y if you want to use PDF PostOffice to send Return Merchandise Authorizations.
  11. PDF Default From Email Address  Enter the default email From address for PDF PostOffice emails.  The default value is "noreply@yourdomain.com." You should change "yourdomain.com" to your actual email address domain. This address is used to initially fill out the From email address when setting up the email.  Unlike the "noreply" suggest that this email address won't be monitored, someone should monitor the bounce back email and take actions.  You may also use something like "accounting@yourdomain.com" or whatever suit your needs.  In some special situations, you may want to use the salesman's email as the from email, as might be the case for order acknowledgements.  In that case, when you set up the order acknowledgement template, you can use something like $salesmanemail$ as the send from email.  In that scenario, if the email is to be sent out using an email-to-fax solution and the first character in the From address is a $ (indicating a variable is being used), this default from address will override the specified email from address in the template. This is necessary because services like srfax.com may accept a limited number of valid send from email addresses for the account.  So you will set up the noreply email address as the valid send from email address in your srfax.com account.
  12. Is PDF PostOffice in Testing Mode?  If this field is marked Y (and the next field is supplied), emails will be sent to the following address instead of the actual addresses.  This is helpful when first implementing PDF PostOffice and when making changes.  This field must be set to N for production use.
  13. PDF PostOffice Test Email Address  When the previous field is marked Y, an email address entered here will receive all PDF PostOffice-generated emails.
EMK

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