More Automation With Workflow Software Upgrade

Gradual Software's Switch 07 workflow software will make its UK debut at the Digital Print World exhibtion from October 16 -18 in London (UK).

The company will present demonstrations of Switch 07 on its stand - 426 - along with its UK distributor, Positive Focus.

Switch 07 is an to the Switch range, which includes the entry-level Lightswitch, the mainstream Fullswitch and the more advanced Powerswitch.

The Switch 07 upgrade features extended built-in automation capabilities and provides support for automating additional third-party vendor applications.

Saskia Desmet, director of international sales at Gradual Software, commented: "We're looking forward to introducing Switch 07 to the UK market.

This new upgrade directly addresses the additional requirements of our customers who are already benefiting from the Switch product line to create flexible and efficient automation workflows." According to Gradual Software, one of Switch 07's technical strengths is its 20 configurators that provide configuration and automation of key third-party applications directly from within Switch and can be added to a workflow using drag-and-drop.

That capability is said to be important to Switch users that Gradual Software launched a separate communication platform called Crossroads, aimed at helping users understand how different applications can be used together to form complete workflow systems.

The configurators provided by Switch 07 can be used for PDF creation, pre-flight, colour manipulation, proofing and image manipulation.

Additional Switch 07 developments include better ways to organise and identify flows, the ability to lock flows down to protect them from tampering and user interface enhancements throughout Switch designer.

The new upgrade makes processing of jobs possible via added support for variables, which make it possible to refer to job properties and embedded metadata without the use of scripting, said the company.

Ivor Dixon, managing director at Positive Focus, explained: "Introducing variables across the whole product range adds real power to Lightswitch and Fullswitch and will also appeal to Powerswitch users with limited scripting experience.

Variables are relatively easy to use, even with little training, yet they allow complex tasks to be automated within a Switch flow." He added that troubleshooting of automated workflows becomes easier because of better logging (enhanced search, export of log messages as XML) and a new dashboard that provides an overview of any problems in the active flows.

Problem resolution is also said to be improved as Switch 07 includes tools for handling problem jobs, automatic notification and retries for failing processes.

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