Any InSite users?

[born2print]

Hey chris r, et.al.
starting an InSite thread here. Installed 3 days, mostly a CSR-sales-client driven deal.
so wazzup?

[chris_r]

hey born2print,

we have been using insite since january, so i am hardly an expert or anything like that, but i have been given a good opportunity to get under the hood and mess around with it, and i love it.  it is easy to use, has a nice interface, it is browser-based, so getting your clients set up is a snap.

we started pretty low-key, carefully choosing a couple of customers whose workflow seemed to fit the whole prinergy/insite model the smoothest.  initially, we set it up for file transfer, showing the customer and our csrs how to locate jobs, and upload pages.  i also used that time to set up all of our client info and email notifications.  once the infrastructure seemed to be in place, we started using some basic upload processing, some minor automation, pages being refined and provided for review, that kind of thing.  now we are starting to ratchet it up a bit more, and expand to some of our larger accounts, and step up the level of involvement from our csrs.  to me, for this thing to really work properly, it has to start with the csr's, they really are the ones that need to get the ball rolling.  there is no way we are granting customers the ability to create jobs on our prinergy server, so our csrs are going to be responsible for setting up the jobs through insite.

customer feedback has been great.  we have one client who has networking issue on thier end who complained about how long it takes to render pages in their browser, but all of our other clients have not complained.  i can go home and log in on my home computer and view pages, and they come up with hardly any delay at all.

i love talking prinergy and insite.  every day we learn something new and are amazed by the flexability of it all, it is fun building it up and expanding it, and learning new little tricks and workflows that canmake your life easier.

look forward to sharing ideas with anyone else who is a prinergy/insite user!

cr

[born2print]

Thanks a bunch chrisR, sounds spot-on to our current approach, we're basically starting last-this week and following the outline you mention.

[chris_r]

when you really wrap your mind around insite and prinergy and how they work together, the possibilities seem almost limitless as long as you are careful with who gets what user rights, and your customers are educated on how it all comes together.  it is a real opportunity to make a massive difference that affects the whole company.  we have parts of the building interested in using insite that we never predicted when we installed it, it is really interesting to hear other departments views on how they would like to use it, and why.

cr

[30YearsandCounting]

we have parts of the building interested in using insite that we never predicted when we installed it, it is really interesting to hear other departments views on how they would like to use it, and why.

cr

Just curious.... what are the other comments you are hearing?  Other than sales/csr's... is there anyone else wanting to use it?

[chris_r]

2 different areas that we hadn't thought much about initially...quality control and imaging/inkjetting department.

our quality control department has made inquiries about incorporating insite into the way they do things, perhaps by reducing or eliminating altogether many of the hard copy final, or as we call them here "reader" proofs, and using insite workstations instead to check printed sigs and samples. 

or imaging guys ask us to make all imaging/inkjetting jobs available to them so they can download pdf files of an imposed signature.  the exact ins and outs of what they do with them is a little out of my realm, but they are able to somehow use them to help set up the inkjet heads on press during makeready.  how they use them i dont know, but i do know they are glad to have them.

one other area that is interested to play with insite is our ink room.  they have said the ability to see the sigs on insite may in some way help them with determining ink amounts...but we are already supplying them with ink usage reports generated from prinergy.

im not sure how all of it will play in the end, and im not sure i LIKE all of the ideas, but i enjoy having other departments show enthusiasm about it, so we will keep exploring them.  like i said in the earlier post, im new at this too, so every day is an adventure.

cr

[Aaron]

We have been using Insite since with was a baby. One of the initial Beta sites. They have made a number of great upgrades over the years. The interface is smoother and easier for us to find users in accounts.

The only downside I've noticed is how off the color appears on screen. We aren't using the virtual Color software and maybe that would solve the issue. But I get customers all the time that call and ask "it it really going to print that bright??" Insite seems to use an RGB snapshot of the file. And maybe it's because we are still on a Brisque. Anyone with Prinergy have this problem?

[born2print]

I haven't heard that complaint (yet) Aaron,
We're advancing slowly with using more & more InSite features. In our case, sometimes the client is the enthused party because they're already using it at another facility or even at a competitor.
It's going to be hard for shops to compete with Insite and similarly equiped shops, I'll tell you that.
example job=16 versions each of 4/0 posters, boxes and book covers:

Client loads files (Mind you there's no quote, job ticket, job number, nothing yet)
Client refines using specific hot folder pointed at certain jtp(s)
Client softproofs at multiple locations world wide, all at once, annotates changes and rejects/resubmits pages
Round and round they go (I still haven't lifted a finger)
Client approves pages, job becomes "live" and enters production, ticket is written if not already
Prepress does final refines w/ trapping if needed, imposes and checks quality, makes contract Epsons
Client approves first round contract proofs and is on press within 24hrs
total job turnaround = 3-5 days.

How ya like them apples?

[shazam]

We've been on this for about 6 weeks, as an enterprise-wide solution. That's about 80 locations using it internally and I can't guess how many 'outside' customers. We use Smart Review as internal QC, as it's been mentioned. It's a good system, vastly improved from the last time I used it, about 5 years ago.
Either Kodak or our 'tech team' underestimated the load, and overestimated the power of the installed hardware, as we have encountered near 'deal-breaker' lack of performance. We've had to re-schedule some things for earlier or later in the day to keep the load on the servers down. We're now scrambling to add more servers.