IPEX 2006 marks the evolution of Objective Advantage’s recently-launched Symbio desktop application into Symbio Server, developed to take automated creation of routine commercial print jobs to the next level. The original Symbio Desktop application - launched in the USA and UK early this year in conjunction with Duplo’s DC645 slitter/cutter/creaser - gives the print-room manager a simple, interactive software tool with which to create a JDF-based ‘file-to-finish’ workflow. Symbio Desktop generates a sheet layout specific to the capabilities of the output and finishing devices the printer is working with and prompts the user to save each job as a Symbio Job Template. Subsequent new jobs can be created from the same template, reducing even further the set up time and effort taken to run a job. Building on this, Symbio Server automates job creation by providing the user with a menu option inviting them to upload an established Symbio Job Template from the desktop application to Symbio Server. At this stage, the job is given a Product ID, creating a Symbio Server Product, for example “50mm x 85mm Business Cards”. Once loaded, the Symbio Server Product can be triggered in several ways to create a job and execute the workflow, without any manual Symbio operator intervention. The simplest method to start a job using Symbio Server is to access the server via any Web browser and drop a PDF into the Hot Folder representing the relevant Symbio Server Product. Alternatively, the Symbio Server Product can display an FTP URL, enabling it to receive files from any FTP client software. Users can also submit jobs to Symbio Server directly over the Internet, enabling commercial print businesses to rapidly process web orders received directly from customers. In any of these scenarios, Symbio Server receives the sender’s PDF, automatically creates a new job according to the Product template, generates an imposed press sheet PDF, and sends the jobs straight to the press and finishing systems. The originator of the job could be an in-house graphic designer, a remote agency or corporate client, or a one-off customer. “With Symbio Server, true web-to-print workflows can finally become a reality”, comments Gareth O’Brien, CEO of Objective Advantage. “Until now, regardless of how sophisticated the web front end, the printer would still usually have to receive an email, download the sender’s PDF file, intervene to impose it correctly for the press and finishing systems in question, and then load it into the relevant print queue, negating many of the efficiencies of the web model. “Symbio Server eliminates all this intervention – these actions can all be automated using the template, and the software will take care of the imposition and pass the job straight to the appropriate queue for printing and finishing, limited only by the number of Symbio Server Products the printer wants to create.” Symbio at IPEX 2006 Objective Advantage will show Symbio Desktop and Symbio Server in conjunction with three key partners at IPEX 2006: Duplo (Hall 3 D50); Xerox (Hall 3 C70); and HP (Hall 4 B25). On the Duplo stand (3/D50), printers will see Symbio Server in a web-to-print greetings card production workflow with the Duplo DC-645, simulating that run by UK customer Moonpig (www.moonpig.com). This demonstration illustrates Symbio Server’s ‘job ganging’ feature, which allows several orders with similar requirements to be gathered and run together. In the case of Moonpig, where each order represents a single item, jobs are ganged so that the order is retained, but the jobs are mixed coming out of the finishing system. Symbio Desktop will also be shown by Duplo in a bookletmaking workflow with the System 5000. Symbio Desktop will be shown on the Xerox Corporation stand (3/C70) in a workflow involving a Xerox DocuColor 7000 Digital Press using a CREO POD Spire DFE, and a Duplo DC-645. Online job submission through Symbio Server will be shown on the HP stand (4/B25). Files generated in iWay’s Prime web interface will be imposed via Symbio Server and processed directly to an HP Indigo 5000 press and Duplo DC-645, as well as to a Duplo System 5000 bookletmaker and Horizon guillotine. Visitors to HP can also see how Symbio interfaces with an MIS. A job will be created in Optimus and sent to Symbio: the visitor will see this job in the Symbio job list, reflecting all the settings such as Media and Devices that were made in the MIS. The operator will then import the PDF, complete any settings that were not supplied by the MIS and run the job, which the visitor can see being processed through the HP Indigo 5000 press and DC645 finishing line.