Management Software Cuts the Busywork

Perched atop a hill overlooking the vast Pacific Ocean, Point Loma Nazarene University (PLNU) enjoys some spectacular views — especially at sunset. The San Diego-based Christian liberal arts college was founded in 1902 as Pacific Bible College and rechristened Point Loma Nazarene University in 1998.

Serving the printing and mailing needs of the university’s 66 departments and approximately 2,600 undergraduates, PLNU’s four-employee in-plant uses a pair of Xerox C75 color printers and a Xerox D95 black-and-white machine. Its finishing gear includes a Baum folder and a Pro Lam perfect binder, plus other wire, comb and tape binding equipment.

PLNU Reprographics handles typical university work such as course packs, syllabi, tests, books, brochures and postcards. Wedding invitations are a growing business as well, and the shop produces yearbooks for local elementary and middle schools.

Mail Services provides services to PLNU students, staff, faculty and residents surrounding the university. These services include shipping through USPS, UPS and FedEx, as well as regular and bulk mail.

Significant Time Savings

One of the biggest changes to come to the in-plant happened in October 2014 when the shop implemented Print Shop Pro management software from edu Business Solutions. The installation included Print Shop Pro Manager, the Webdesk online job submission tool, Template Builder, Document Converter, LDAP Integration and the Mail Module. With 500-700 job requests per month, the software has saved the in-plant a significant amount of time.

“It has allowed us to not have to enter the jobs into the system ourselves,” remarks Christina Holt, Mail Services and Reprographics manager. “And I would say 75% of the time it is automatically billing the job out so that we don’t have to go in and make adjustments.”

Customers are able to view and pull reports of all their charges online. This has proven to be a fantastic time-saving benefit, as Holt is no longer tasked with sending out monthly statements to customers.

“Having online access to the history of previous orders and the ability to duplicate past orders for reprinting is a huge benefit,” says Holt, who has been with PLNU for nine years, and manager for a year and a half.

Getting Everyone On Board

Print jobs are either charged to budget account numbers or handled as cash transactions. Since implementing Print Shop Pro the in-plant has achieved 100% online order submission through Webdesk, though Holt admits there was some early resistance. Those people quickly came around, however, once they used the system.

“The people who resisted ... as soon as they’ve done their first order they’re like, ‘oh that was pretty easy,’” she laughs.

Prior to Print Shop Pro, customers would fill out a paper print request form that was either sent via email or hand delivered. The print staff had to enter all jobs into their in-house system, which was time consuming and offered them no audit trail. “If something was lost, it was gone for good,” she says.

Once the decision was made to look into a print management software solution, Holt put together her wish list of key objectives. The software would have to provide an audit trail, track charges against departmental budget codes and streamline management of the chargeback process through the accounting program. And, lastly, the software had to have the capability to manage both print and mail operations.

The initial investigation into print management software was conducted by the IT department. IT’s efforts ultimately resulted in receiving a referral from an affiliated university, in Idaho, which had been using Print Shop Pro for five years. The IT department reached out to edu Business Solutions and made arrangements for an on-site demonstration. Holt and her team were pleased with edu’s responsiveness to their inquiries and needs.

Being the manager of both the print and mail operations, Holt was a logical choice to champion the print management software project. She worked with edu’s technical support and training staff through the different phases of installation, configuration, training and launch.

Having made the purchase in late June 2014, Holt had a busy summer gathering the data and populating the pre-installation spreadsheet for import into Print Shop Pro. She was able to successfully complete the implementation and rollout to all customers by October 1.

“The system’s email and template tools to automate the communication with our customers is great,” praises Holt. “Having the email template created and sent automatically has eliminated the need for the print staff to call people to pick up their orders or request proofing of their orders.”