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Element Partners with Optimus, the leading MIS Provider

Fri, 24 May 2024 16:18:06 GMT

Save manual work by using Rita to auto create Optimus Enquiries and Jobs

Author: Steve Richardson – Optimus Group Commercial Director

Date: 15 ^th May 2024

Optimus announce a new automation partnership with Element –

Import any spreadsheet into Optimus to automatically create quotes or jobs – “Do More for Less”.

For many Print Service Providers, receiving a spreadsheet from their customer to manage and deliver a campaign is normally the very first step in the print production process. Then ensuring the integrity of that received data to translate the contents into accurate quotes or jobs, often requires extensive manual intervention before production can start.

Having worked closely with several Optimus customers who regularly experienced this situation first hand; the team at Optimus directed their focus on identifying progressive technology software providers who have successfully addressed this very specific industry challenge.

We are delighted to say that our search led us to “Element” who were able to prove that with the use of their “Spreadsheet Uploader Solution” the cleansing and streamlining of data could be done effortlessly, which in some instances saved days of time and cost! As a business we have created and seen many import routines, but the solution we evaluated from Element, we see as a significant step up from other industry solutions. For all these reasons, we are delighted to formally announce the start of our partnership at Drupa 2024; and this is how the two products will cohesively combine:

First by using Element, customer provided data, will be carefully but quickly validated to map to your Optimus dash MIS; then within a few clicks the creation of either a quote or a full production job can be easily achieved within Optimus. This is all made possible by harnessing “Optimus Web Services” which acts as a very precise API to deliver bi-directional XML message communication between both systems within seconds. The net result is not only a significant reduction in the time it takes to enter a campaign, but it also removes the potential for error handling! As one customer stated, “It’s like having another member of staff who does everything in a fraction of the time, plus they don’t make any mistakes, everything is always so carefully validated”.

Obtaining a full return on investment, is therefore easily measurable with a combined Optimus MIS and Element solution. By eliminating all that manual effort and replacing all that lost time with an automated integrated approach, we truly believe you can “Do More for Less”.

To find out more; and see for yourself exactly how this new integration between Optimus and Element can help your business, please do visit us on stand at Drupa in Hall 7A Stand A13.

Or visit www.optimus2020.com/integrations/spreadsheet-automation/

If you have more questions and wish to talk to Optimus directly, please send a message via: www.optimus2020.com/contact/

Element Partners with Carbon Quota in the fight against climate change.

Tue, 14 Feb 2023 10:38:15 GMT

I’ve been on this planet for 54 years and I’ve seen how much it has changed. We all know how important it is to do our bit for the environment. Working with retailers who order print, and with printers who manufacture it, I don’t need to go into how important it is to minimise the environmental impact of the industry we are in.

That why I thought I need to ensure Element plays its part. But I didn’t want to just talk it up, I wanted to make sure we do something genuine and credible.

CarbonQuota are leaders in helping customers accelerate to Net Zero. They are a great bunch of people with deep expertise in measuring carbon footprint.

So, we connected together, showed each other how amazing our complimentary tech is, integrated systems together, and did a deal.

Element now has the ability to connect with CarbonQuota and present accurate and certified carbon data for marketing campaigns.

I’m really excited about it because it means our company can continue to evolve a great product, and at the same time be comforted by the fact that we are helping in the fight against climate change.

Here’s a bit more detail about how it works and what the benefits are:

How does it work?

In Element, campaigns can be built on line using store profiles or can be dragged-and-dropped and imported using the ground-breaking Rita The Spreadsheet Eater.

However they are created, Element organises the campaign into quality data which is sent to CarbonQuota. CarbonQuota then sends back accurate data measuring the CO2 output for the campaign.

Why is this a great innovation?

You now use Element in the normal way, and automatically get CO2 data for anything you put in. This means:

Retailers can now add CO2 usage to their decision-making criteria when using Element’s RFQ module or Campaign Builder to award jobs to suppliers. It’s no longer has to be just about price.
Print Managers can decide which suppliers to choose depending on CO2 output.
Printers can accurately measure the CO2 output for anything they manufacture.

What about printers who use Tharstern?

If the printer uses Tharstern, then can get even more granular CO2 data by hooking Element into Tharstern’s connection with Carbon Quota.

This means you can drag and drop a client spreadsheet into Element, automatically generate Tharstern estimates and sales orders from the client order, and then get CarbonQuota measurements for each of your estimates from Tharstern.

You can use this for your own reporting, or present the data back to your client with Element’s client-facing campaign reporting dashboards.

We didn’t want to just talk up climate change; we wanted to make sure that whatever we did in Element was genuine and credible. That’s why we partnered with the experts at CarbonQuota. They have in-depth knowledge of how CO2 is measured, and what they do is certified. So that means what we offer in Element is the real deal.

Get in touch to find out more. Contact us at sales@elementonline.net

Rita The Spreadsheet Eater And Tharstern Integrate For Next Level Automation

kumarbloke@gmail.com (Sanjeev Kumar) — Thu, 27 Oct 2022 13:52:20 GMT

IMPORT ANY SPREADSHEET INTO ELEMENT AND CREATE THARSTERN JOBS FOR STANDARD PRODUCTS

We are delighted to announce we have joined forces with the leading MIS provider @Tharstern to provide a bi-directional, fully integrated solution to automate and streamline campaign & brief management, data entry and distribution.

Sanjeev Kumar, Element’s Founder & MD, says this about the integration, “I know how central an MIS system like Tharstern is to a printer. I also know how frustrating it is for our print clients to take spreadsheet orders from their customers, who don’t want to change the way they work by the way, and then turn them into meaningful jobs in Tharstern. I was being told time and time again how they wanted to take away the manual work and free their account managers and estimators up to do what people do best – be creative, support customers, work on more complicated estimates and sell more! So that is where Rita was born. No, we’ve not got a new member of staff.” He jokes.

Fondly named internally as Rita, the spreadsheet eater, Element’s Spreadsheet Uploader was only released publicly a couple of months ago after a long development.

Sanjeev continues, “The spreadsheet eater revolutionises how customer spreadsheets are handled, and then by connecting it with Tharstern through the Element Connect module, it takes all of the manual typing, and copying & pasting away. The concept is really simple but developing it was complicated.

Where it can take someone hours to manipulate the spreadsheets for input into Tharstern, Element hides all the complexity with a drag and drop solution, followed by 2 simple clicks to turn any spreadsheet, in any format, into a print ready production job instantly accepted by the Tharstern MIS.”

So, what does this mean for the print community?

Ultimately, Element Connect provides Tharstern MIS users with time. In an economy where prices need to continue to be competitive, this integration gives printers an alternative to reducing quality to maintain their profits. Rita is, in essence, a virtual Account Manager, handling the mundane churn of turning client briefs into production jobs, allowing for human Account Managers to work on increasing revenue.

To benefit from this Element and Tharstern integration, you need to be on the Tharstern SaaS commercial model, with the API subscription.