A Solution to Merge Documents From IBM i with Additional Formatting and Charting to Output in PDF Format.
Duncan Lawrie is a leading provider of integrated wealth management services. In today's changing world, many of the traditional virtues of reliability, attention to detail and individual service tend to be forgotten.
Duncan Lawrie believes that these qualities are what their clients look for in a private bank and they strive to maintain them in spite of the pressures from the volatile world outside.
With offices in London, Wrotham, Bristol and the Isle of Man, they are well-placed to provide a comprehensive range of banking, investment, financial planning and trust services in both an onshore and offshore environment. Every client is looked after by a relationship manager, thereby ensuring a prompt, well-informed and friendly service, which is tailored to suit each individual's requirements.
Stage 1
Duncan Lawrie acquired two asset management companies, Douglas Deakin Young and Hill Martin and wanted to merge their investment management systems with their existing operation to provide a newly formatted, informative and consistent Quarterly Valuation pack to all its clients. These valuations would be generated by their G3 banking application from Microgen but needed to be created in PDF format with additional formatting and charting requirements to feed into an external outsourced printing and collation process. There was also a requirement to automatically feed these PDF's into a secured folder area within a new Internet Banking facility to be launched later in the year.
Stage 2
In stage 2, Duncan Lawrie required the generation of a customised letter for each valuation report which would include paragraphs that related to matched holdings or transactions in the valuations. Each letter would contain merged data and include various paragraphs based upon the data provided, controlled by multiple user-maintained templates specific to each investment manager. From this point the Investment Manager can review the boilerplate letter that has been produced and add more specific commentary and personalisation to make sure that a combination of relevant and up to date information is combined properly with personal and customised input and commentary.
Stage 3
Duncan Lawrie required a summary report, by investment manager, to be extracted from the valuation process spooled file to allow for a complete overview of the holdings under management and their performance so that 'sense checking' over a large number of portfolios was feasible.
The Solution
Stage 1
Duncan Lawrie turned to Spacetec Ltd for InterForm400, a solution that merges documents from the IBM i (AS400) with charts generated by Spacetec Ltd newly created Charting tool, the output to be generated in PDF files.
As Duncan Lawrie did not have any in-house development resource up to speed, Spacetec Ltd was able to provide the personnel necessary to carry out the work required which included setting up the InterForm overlays and a bespoke process to interface with the Spacetec Ltd Charting software. This was achieved in 9 working days.
Charting for IBM i (AS400) allows the report generating workflow to include graphical pie, line or bar charts, greatly increasing impact with both management and customers.
Stage 2
InterWord400 a module of InterForm400, was deployed with a bespoke developed process to deliver the client's requirements within a very tight deadline.
Stage 3
Spacetec Ltd assisted by using InterForm400 spooled file reformatting, sorting and PDF functions toproduce the clients requirements in just 1 working day.
The Result
The project completed to time and budget and the end result is a set of highly flexible formatted outputs from G3 that the client would not have been able to achieve by any other means. In addition, the client now has an inherent output production capability to PDF that they are rolling out into other processes in the business such as statement production and the complete replacement of specialised COLD routines.