Page 1 of 1

Preflighting in Client Services

Posted: Tue Jan 03, 2023 10:53 pm
by freshmic1
Is there anyone out there that has the CSRs doing basic Preflighting prior to sending the job into Production?

Currently, our CSRs use Switch Submit point and the PDFs get a basic preflight report sent to the CSR prior to putting the job in Production.

If you currently have Client Services doing basic preflighting, could you give me some feedback on how you do it and the pitfall/problems you run into.

There is some debate as to who should be doing the preflighting. I'm just curious to hear from those that have CSRs preflighting and how that is working out.

Re: Preflighting in Client Services

Posted: Tue Jan 03, 2023 11:57 pm
by magnussandstrom
Today 65% of our manual jobs are fully handled (all the way to press) by our CSR's and inhouse sales persons. The rest is handled by dedicated Prepress employees. The CSR's are using a few dynamic Submit Points to preflight, impose and send approvals to customers. After reviewing the imposition they send it further to press. We have about 40 CSR's today and are handeling a lot of jobs everyday.

The journey have not been without cruxes, we have been working with this for years. But most of the CSR's love the workflow by now. It's fast and accurate.

Regarding preflighting:
(All our DFE:s and RIP:s are PDF/X-4 compatibled and configured)
We check for the most common things in the initial preflight
Fonts
Page size
Image res
No of pages (based on selcted product)
If not PDF/X we check for transparency and flatten if found

Re: Preflighting in Client Services

Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2023 2:42 am
by freshmic1
Wow, that's impressive. I'm literally just fighting for basic preflight by CS.

Thank you for your reply.

Re: Preflighting in Client Services

Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2023 8:22 am
by freddyp
I would like to draw your attention to BoardingPass, a preflight product that is targeted at CSRs: https://www.enfocus.com/en/boardingpass

Re: Preflighting in Client Services

Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2023 2:17 pm
by freshmic1
Hi Freddy,

I know about Boarding Pass. That is not the issue and my report is so basic in PitStop, also not the issue.

The issue is "Who should preflight" IMHO, it's not Preflight if you put the job into Production for Prepress to "Preflight"......that's just production.

I'm looking for other users who have CSRs doing the Preflight. I'm having a surprisingly hard time finding them and getting their feedback.

Re: Preflighting in Client Services

Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2023 5:13 pm
by magnussandstrom
This is how it looks for our CSR's:

1. Submit job
submit_1.jpg
submit_1.jpg (92.15 KiB) Viewed 4865 times

2. Review preflight (only if any warnings or errors, in native simple language):
submit_2.jpg
submit_2.jpg (62.68 KiB) Viewed 4865 times


3. Review imposition
submit_3.jpg
submit_3.jpg (87.82 KiB) Viewed 4865 times



4. And a mail with link to PDF Review is sent to the customer and CSR automatically (if preflight is without any errors or if the CSR's continues the job).

I been backed by the management buliding this and I think it's really important to make the UI really simple and understandable, also provide something that the CSR's are missing today (Maybe imidiate repsonse, a sense of control or other things that makes the CSR appreciate their new tool instead of the feeling of "Are we also supposed to do prepress work now...!?"

Re: Preflighting in Client Services

Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2023 5:17 pm
by freshmic1
Thank you.

I'm doing something similar but much more basic and still getting complaints from CSRs about 'doing prepress'

Submit point>Add job number>get Preflight report in a Checkpoint, if good> send to Prepress.

So simple, yet complaints and mistakes so looking for any input from anyone doing it in CS.