Ricoh Process Director Express

Standard Features

Preview a print sample
The preview print feature enables you to print a representative sample of pages from within a job for approval, as a step within a workflow. And you can track the approval process and comply with audit requests.

Simplify reprinting or repositioning
You can use the browser-based viewer to select the correct print jobs in the queue for precise repositioning and reprints.

Relax, the database is good to go
RICOH ProcessDirector Express has an embedded IBM® DB2® database, a powerful engine that lets you grow without adding overhead cost. It can handle the production details for millions of documents so you can keep saying yes to new work.

Never say no to add-on software
With the ability to plug in optional features and to interact with third-party software, you can manage both current and future production processes and lower overall total cost of print. Even better, you can control third-party software from within the workflow builder so you maintain a single point of control.

Build workflows quickly and easily
There’s no need to build workflows from scratch—too time consuming! With RICOH ProcessDirector Express, you can drag and drop icons to build simple or complex workflows quickly. Visual diagrams represent the flow of jobs through your system. When you apply conditional logic to automate business decisions, you set up the rules that send jobs through workflow branches automatically. For example, you can specify logic that will drive jobs that are over a set page count to print automatically on continuous feed printers and route smaller jobs to your cutsheet devices.

Optional Features

New! Archive jobs for months or years and retrieve them easily
Accommodate requirements for long-term file storage. You can archive jobs and their associated index information as a step in a workflow, and you can quickly and easily search for a document or job using the indexed properties. After you retrieve a job, you can view it, reprint it by submitting it back into the workflow or take other actions. After jobs that need to be archived are moved out of the active job table, your operators can use their time more efficiently because they're managing fewer files on a day-to-day basis.

New! Enable your production and MIS systems to share information
The Avanti Slingshot Connect feature enables your MIS system to send job and JDF information from the Avanti Slingshot MIS system to RICOH ProcessDirector Express, which processes it. Thereafter, our software can provide job status related to specific workflow steps, time duration and pages printed to Avanti. By integrating these systems and automating the reporting process, you can use Avanti to track all jobs in a single system, calculate production costs, manage inventory and use Avanti's advanced scheduling tools.

Extract address information
Save time and reduce postal costs with the Postal Enablement feature, which automates a critical early step in your mail workflow. The feature identifies address information in fully composed documents, extracts it and presents it to third-party software postal optimization software for address cleansing, address suppression and sorting. The feature is tested with industry-leading software, but you can use it with postal tools of all types. You can install the feature yourself or ask our Professional Services team to install it as part of a comprehensive automated mail workflow. When the Postal Enablement feature is integrated with RICOH ProcessDirector Express, the software automatically pulls out address information and puts back corrected address information as steps in workflow. The Postal Enablement feature comes with a plug-in for Acrobat so you can easily index PDF files — even those pesky fully composed versions you receive.

Prove every document is printed accurately
When your staff has to manually find and reprint damaged or missing pieces, this takes a lot of time and might put deadlines at risk. Instead, you can use the optional Automated Verification feature for piece-level tracking and reporting. This feature works in PDF or Advanced Function Presentation™ (AFP™) workflows, and it automates the entire verification process, which you can monitor and manage through the RICOH ProcessDirector Express GUI. Here's how Automated Verification helps you confirm that jobs are complete and accurate:

• Adds a unique barcode to each piece
• Works with inexpensive bolted-on or standalone hand-held barcode-capable cameras
• Leverages the power of the ProcessDirector system, so you don’t need to procure or run a separate system
• Scans each piece that moves through the workflow
• Reconciles completed and non-completed pieces
• Creates a reprint file
• Provides a final reconciliation report

Stay on top of deadlines
Deadlines drive your business, and if you miss any, you risk unhappy customers and possibly financial penalties. The optional Deadline Tracker feature of RICOH ProcessDirector Express makes it easy to stay on top of deadlines, based on criteria you set. Because it works closely with the RICOH ProcessDirector Express workflow builder, Deadline Tracker is able to predict a job's path through a conditional workflow and apply scheduling time only to the steps that will occur. This means Deadline Tracker can accurately predict two things: when a job is taking longer than expected and when a delay puts the job at risk of missing its deadline.

All status information appears on the GUI, so you're able to monitor all of your jobs in one place. Even with rush jobs that interrupt your schedule, Deadline Tracker helps keep your shop running at top efficiency.

Manage multivendor devices within the workflow
With optional cutsheet support for Xerox and Kodak printers, you can manage them just like Ricoh printers. You can select media and finishing operations and set up job properties in RICOH ProcessDirector Express and JDF job tickets (using JDF XRX and KDK commands if you like). And you can use these properties to search for and schedule jobs with similar requirements. When these devices are managed by our workflow software, you can use any of them for printing or reprinting and know that all printed pages are the same.

Apply logic to media and finishing decisions
When you opt for the PDF Mailroom Integrity feature, you can improve mail handling and earn postal discounts. But there's a lot more to this feature. You can select media and set up finishing rules visually. For example, you can mine information, such as a recipient’s name or club member status, from a multi-document print job and dynamically set up the paper on which it prints. Or, easily find the document boundaries within a print job. Then, for example, if a document is greater than a certain number of pages, direct it to be perfect bound. Or, staple documents with fewer pages.

After you use the logic-based tools to set up the media and finishing requirements for every document, RICOH ProcessDirector Express can use this knowledge to further improve productivity. For example, all the documents to be perfect bound can be peeled out of the job and run separately and on a different time table.

No PDF? No problem
If you have a need to manage documents, but your data is in another datastream, the optional Transforms feature allows you to use Adobe® PDF, PostScript®, PCL and Advanced Function Presentation™ (AFP™) print data easily within the system. You can take advantage of document-level information and control.

Fine tune print production efficiency
The optional Reports feature helps you with capacity planning, production efficiency measurement, and problem determination. You can collect data about job events, user actions and printer activity, and generate reports based on the data.

• View reports and change how the information is displayed.
• Modify the supplied reports to create your own customized reports.
• Save and delete reports.
• Export reports as comma-separated value (CSV) files so you can print them or manipulate the data in spreadsheets or other applications.
• Run a report as a step in your workflow.

Automate the pre-flight process
The optional Enfocus PitStop Connect feature provides a standard step to call PitStop server and automates the process that prepares files for print. One less manual task to worry about!

Apply impositioning templates automatically
The optional Ultimate Impostrip Connect feature provides a standard interface from RICOH ProcessDirector Express to Ultimate Impostrip OnDemand Digital Automation (ODDA). Save time by invoking templates within a workflow.