Small upgrade with large impact

Tucanna Software & Development, industry innovator and developer for print production automation and quality control solutions is proud to launch a small but important update of its online job-submission and collaboration system tFLOW Approval. It allows tFLOW to completely replace an FTP, and also takes the next step towards project management by adding an area for extra files and instructions.

In the new version, there are no limits to file types. Any file type can now be dropped into the artwork drop zone.

If the file can be converted to PDF, it will be preflighted. Otherwise it will be stored as a native file. As soon as it has been converted/saved, the user is notified that it has arrived.  He/She can now download it, work with it, and then upload the print ready file as the second revision.

Orders now have three areas instead of one:

1. Jobs like before, where jobs are stored
2. Support files where you can put anything you want - PO’s extra files, CAD drawings, anything
3. Notes or instructions 

This same structure also exists on the job level, so you can have job specific support files and instructions, as well as order-wide files and instructions. 

tFLOW Approval is an easy to use collaboration platform for submitting, annotating, preflighting, and tracking jobs and files. Together with tFLOW Production, Tucanna offers its customers a full production automation and online collaboration suite that brings together customer service representatives, clients, creative professionals, design agencies, brand owners, and printers.

tFLOW Approval can be installed in the local network or in the cloud, and is accessible via a standard web browser, greatly enhancing the job-submission workflow and customer approval process by replacing countless emails, low-res PDFs, and images which would have required being sent back and forth to all members of the project. In tFLOW Approval, all files, comments, annotations, versions and job histories are stored in one place, eliminating the confusion that multiple files and conversation threads stored across many users’ computers entails.

Automation is the key to success, and tFLOW Approval includes many tools to ensure a seamless and simplified workflow. Adobe CS connectors provide creatives with direct access to the system from within native applications, permitting them to define routing and parameterization via XMP data embedded in file slug lines. Automatic email notifications inform users of new files, status changes, revision requests and uploads, as well as project approvals, and a dynamic status bar informs the logged in user of any changes in the system. Connectivity to other important elements such as Web2Print and MIS systems are also contemplated via hot folders and XML processing.