TRIM is a leading document management system
produced in Australia by Tower
Software and used around the world. It uses a scalable
distributed architecture and can easily handle thousands of
users. TRIM provides full integration with CDMA compliant
applications, strong security, document numbering patterns,
retention schedules, locations, powerful searching capabilities,
containership hierarchies, etc. It also exposes a rich API
that can be used to extend the product and interface to third
party applications.
Better Software has developed significant
expertise in TRIM-related extensions and TRIM API based applications.
We have been writing TRIM for many years now and have also
developed a good relationship with the manufacturer -Tower
Software, and with the leading South Australian dealer
and TRIM system integrator - SoftImpact.
The following list of applications and clients
for TRIM-related services is not exhaustive:
- Automatic data import of scanned documents (SA Lotteries)
- Specialised reporting based on very specific selection
criteria (Newmont Mining)
- Document Queue Processing (City of Charles Sturt)
- Powerful, user-friendly addins for various tasks varying
from selecting specialised information to integrating with
third party applications.
- Database replication support and procedures for generating
similar Test/Training/Production environments.
- Web-based TRIM reporting integrated with TRIM security
and with Active Directory
- TRIM-Active Directory integration for TRIM locations
- Integration of TRIM with other systems using web services
distributed architectures (eg. SMS Gateway for to-from SMS
to be registered in TRIM).
In conjunction with Softimpact Pty Ltd, Better
Software have aquired significant expertise in maintaining,
upgrading and installing TRIM in a range of environments.
Softimpact have done many large implementations of TRIM and
are experts in TRIM product support and training.
The Queue Processor
No matter how powerful the document management
system is, before anything can be done with the documents,
they must be entered in the system. While TRIM provides a
sophisticated, rule-based bulk import facility, it does not
have the same power when it comes to entering thousands of
documents per day manually through the user interface.
In such cases, organisations either employ
extra staff whose job is to enter documents in TRIM, or use
some empowering products like the Queue Processor. The Queue
Processor allows an organisation to set rules and temaplates
for processing large number of documents from predefined TRIM
queues with minimal user input.
For example, it is quite common in an organisation
for most of the invoices received to be directed to one department,
to follow the same workflow process and to be all named based
on a certain rule set by an internal standard in that organisation.
To enter all these in TRIM manually, it might take an experienced
operator a few minutes as each item on the screen must be
selected from a list.
The Queue Processor uses the concept of templates
to provide a set of fields that are filled with predefined,
rule-based values. For each type of document there is a template.
Eg. one for invoices, one for complaints, one for enquiry
letters, etc.
Using a template with all the fields pre-filled
by the smart rule engine, entering the same invoice only takes
a few seconds. This is an improvement by an order of magnitude
over the manual process. This also relieves staff from doing
the boring and error-prone work.
This application was implemented at the City
of Charles Sturt in Adelaide and was presented and very well
received at the TRIM Australia-Pacific Conference in Perth
on the 8/9/2005.
We don't write our software,
we craft it!
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