Printed documents continue to play a central role in key business processes, from the supply chain right through to invoicing. Columbus OM is an enterprise output management (OM) system, designed to deliver documents reliably and securely from any application, on any technology platform, to any networked printer.
Disruptions to printing can bring businesses to a standstill, resulting in unnecessary costs, service interruptions and loss of revenue. Columbus OM keeps your business-critical printing running smoothly and protects your organization against costly print failures.
All print jobs and printers throughout your organization can be monitored and managed centrally from a single point of control, allowing you to detect and correct problems quickly and maintain high levels of service for your customers and business users. Additionally, you can switch from printing to multi-channel delivery by transforming your existing print spool output into the right format for digital channels such as email and online self-service.
Columbus OM integrates with third-party applications such as SAP® ERP to extend their output management capabilities, freeing you from the costs and risks of adapting your business systems to increase printing resilience, flexibility and control.
A single point of control
An intuitive browser interface displays the health of your corporate print infrastructure, helping you to diagnose and fix output problems, and simplify administration of your printing processes.
Automated recovery
In the event of a device or network failure, print jobs are recovered automatically; documents can be rerouted to another printer or to a digital channel such as email or a web portal, while keeping business users and IT teams informed.
Automated splitting and bundling
Output such as reports can be combined or split to produce new documents, saving you time as you don’t have to modify the original documents or source applications to create the content you want. Paper waste is also reduced by only printing the pages each user really needs.
Format transformation
A powerful transformation engine converts documents into alternative output formats on demand, enabling you to print on a wider range of production and distributed printers and to quickly repurpose printed documents for digital delivery.
Enterprise control
Bulk system changes, such as adding new printers, can be made in one central location and are then instantly applied throughout your global printer network, across all Columbus OM instances, to save administrator effort.
Application integration
Columbus OM integrates with your business applications to increase printing reliability across the enterprise. Additionally, information on device status and printing activity can be sent to helpdesks and management frameworks to support operational intelligence.
SAP output management
Columbus OM integrates with SAP systems using certified interfaces, ensuring interoperability in line with SAP technical best practice; for extra flexibility there is the option of using either managed or unmanaged gateways for exchanging data between Columbus OM and SAP.
SAP device configuration
Two-way SAP integration reduces duplication of effort by allowing you to configure printers just once, in either your SAP or Columbus OM system, and then synchronize any changes automatically across both systems.
Embedded business intelligence
Columbus Accounting provides rich reports on your printing environment to help you drive continuous service improvement, and supports a range of business activities, including forecasting and capacity planning, service level management, usage-based billing and infrastructure optimization.