Has anyone else noticed how much of a buzz there is around the use of consumer IT in the workplace?  Intrigued about our own situation I asked our head of IT recently what colleagues are using. I thought there may be a surprise or two hiding somewhere, or even something magic to transform my working day! His reply probably reflects what is being used in your own companies: iPhone; Skype; Google Docs; Facebook; Twitter (Tweetdeck & Hootsuite); SMS (for sending VPN authentication codes).

I then asked him about his support strategy for these consumer tools.  “Very simple”, he said, “self help unless it’s core network/ hardware/ infrastructure related – very little support is required because the products are intuitive and easy to use. There’s also a vast amount of assistance available online through knowledge bases and forums.  And, our users generally know their products better than IT.”

All of which got me thinking about software user interfaces again, and why it is that business software isn’t easier to use.  It was where we started with the development of the gDoc Fusion user interface.

If consumer stuff is so easy and fun to use, then why isn’t our day to day business software too?

How does an IT administrator set up multiple PDF workflows to suit business requirements and centrally manage them?  Well, today’s launch of gDoc PDF Server™ Version 5.1 makes that easy enough with a simple drag and drop management interface.
gDoc PDF Server enables IT administrators to configure and centrally control multiple PDF workflows. Their PC or Mac users can create PDF files from any file format by selecting a “print to PDF” option, with a single click from Microsoft Office to the integrated toolbar, or by delivering their PostScript®, TIFF™ or EPS files to hot folders.  Version 5.1 includes updated platform support for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (32- and 64-bit) and Windows 7 clients. In addition the integration with Microsoft Office has been updated with a ribbon toolbar, for Office 2007 and Office 2010.
PDF settings can be configured for each workflow path, depending on the destination of the document.  The IT administrator retains central control over monitoring and job scheduling, so for example, for high volumes of documents, load-balancing across multiple servers.  From where the user sits the conversion process happens seamlessly with minimum performance impact as the server does all the work.
Why not give it a try by downloading the gDoc PDF Server trial?

For some reason David Stevenson’s last blog post brought a comparison between email attachments and blood types to mind. A person with type O blood is often called a universal donor, because (almost) everyone can be safely given their blood in a transfusion. In the same way, a person with type AB blood is called a universal recipient, because they can safely be given blood from (almost) anyone else.

David effectively described a PDF file as the universal donor for email attachments, like type O blood. You can be pretty sure that the recipient will be able to read it and see the same page layout, images, fonts, text etc as you did before you sent it. So if you want the recipient to be able to access documents as easily as possible, and to read through them in the way that you planned, a PDF is the best way to go.

But just like all best practice, you just know that not everyone will follow it. Your own organization’s internal guidelines often won’t help when you’re receiving files from outside your firewall.

You therefore have to consider not only how you will send email attachments, but also how you might want to handle those that you’re sent by other people. In a sense you need to be a universal recipient as well as a universal donor. This is where the blood type analogy breaks down, because it’s not possible to be both for blood transfusions, but you can do both for email. All you need to do is make sure that you have the tools to read all of the formats that people are likely to send documents to you in … and then ideally to convert them to PDF to let you forward them to your colleagues and follow best practice for delivery!