Posts tagged ‘SharePoint’
Adlib Introduces PDF for SharePoint
Adlib Software, a Canadian document management firm, announced its new product, PDF for SharePoint. This new added-value solution for Microsoft’s SharePoint collaborative environment delivers a comprehensive set of PDF services to extend the value of SharePoint content and improve the efficiency of business processes.
“The strong demand from Adlib’s customers and partners for a SharePoint solution enabled us to work closely with them to develop important out-of-the-box features in PDF for SharePoint,” said Brian Kernohan, VP Partner Channel, Adlib. “In addition, our close partnership with Microsoft has resulted in SharePoint-to-Adlib interfaces that drastically reduce development time for our customers and integration partners. PDF for SharePoint is a win-win solution for everyone.”
PDF for SharePoint automates the conversion of electronic documents to PDF, offering the same capabilities available in Adlib’s flagship solution, Adlib Express. This server-based document transformation solution is used by many Fortune 1000 companies. Among its benefits are centralized management of document transformation standards in multi-departmental environments, transforming high volumes of documents, and automating document workflows through powerful background services.
In addition to rapid integration into the SharePoint environment, PDF for SharePoint speeds operational deployment via out-of-the-box SharePoint workflows that are easily configured to each customer’s needs. These workflows include:
- Convert to PDF – Converts Microsoft Office as well as hundreds of legacy document formats to PDF;
- OCR (Optical Character Recognition) – Converts image documents to text searchable PDF;
- Convert to PDF with Watermark – Adds a watermark to documents;
- Merge Documents – Merges any number of documents into a single PDF and adds a Table of Contents and page numbering.
“The power of these workflows lies in how they are easily deployed,” said Scott Mackey, Director of Product Management for Adlib. “For example, CAD documents can be converted to PDF, making them accessible to field operations and manufacturing. Scanned documents can be converted into searchable PDF’s using the OCR workflow, enabling them to be found using search. A collaborative team effort that results in multiple documents can be aggregated into a single PDF document using the Merge Documents workflow. All of these capabilities are delivered as a natural extension of the SharePoint environment.”
Petris Unveils OneTouch Portal
At the 13th annual PNEC Data Management Conference in Houston, Petris Technology Inc. announced a brand-new integration of its PetrisWINDS Enterprise framework with both Microsoft Office SharePoint and ESRI’s ArcGIS geographical information system (GIS). The new PetrisWINDS OneTouch™ service brings global, multi-disciplinary asset teams together with data from many sources through a Web-based workspace and data environment – “one” place where you can “touch” all your data and collaborate with team members worldwide.
The PetrisWINDS Enterprise service-oriented architecture (SOA) solution provides the foundation for the OneTouch knowledge portal, where users can conduct business intelligence and analytics on real-time data feeds and communicate with others using social networking tools like instant messaging and wikis. The GIS map capabilities help users visualize federated data from multiple sources using bubble charts and map layers, with the ability to drill down deeper into the data for details.
Since around 69% of E&P companies have already adopted SharePoint and many of these also have ESRI ArcGIS, OneTouch leverages these technology investments by offering an easy-to-use, Web-based solution tailored specifically for oil and gas.
“The ESRI and Microsoft SharePoint platforms offer many out-of-the-box features, many of which exploit and amplify an organization’s existing infrastructure,” said Jim Pritchett, CEO of Petris. “Similarly, Petris has existing capabilities with its integration platform and well-entrenched applications in E&P.”
The OneTouch subscription service includes a hosted E&P Web Part Gallery for customers to access – and contribute – user interface designs and business intelligence routines alongside those developed by Petris. Think of it as the YouTube of oil and gas Web Parts. Petris will provide technical guidelines and portal standards to ensure functionality and interoperability of Web Parts submitted to this searchable, online gallery.
Partnership with Wipro for Deployment
To accelerate the deployment of the OneTouch technology worldwide, Petris has formed a strategic partnership with Wipro Technologies. The goal of the alliance is to pair Petris’ experience in complex E&P data management with Wipro’s global manpower, expertise and technology services. Wipro has more than 25 years of experience in delivering technology services on a global scale. The $5 billion company has 100,000 employees in 54 countries. All six of the largest oil companies are Wipro customers.
Because SharePoint and OneTouch deployments are highly configurable, the Petris-Wipro partnership will help customers build an effective solution for their own workflows, linking their proprietary data stores and applications in a searchable Web browser with excellent collaboration tools.
“We are excited to partner with Petris because of their extensive E&P data management expertise,” said Dayapatra Nevatia, head of Wipro’s Energy business. “Maintaining the effective synergy of data and technology will bring tremendous value to the E&P industry.”
Petris and Wipro will form hybrid teams comprised of one or two Petris employees plus 4-6 Wipro employees, some on location at the customer’s site and some in India to tap the expertise there. Using an “agile” software development technique, a rapid turnaround can take the “80% solution” that is OneTouch out of the box and configure it to customer workflows, data and requirements.
“To do the other 20% on a worldwide basis, we needed a worldwide company like Wipro,” Pritchett told PetroComputing. “SharePoint doesn’t get down to the data level.”
Petris VP John Wearing summed it up nicely: “Together we will be integrating the science end with the business end.”
iStore, Infusion Launch PetroTrek App on Multi-Touch Platform
The Information Store (iStore) and Infusion Development have expanded the PetroTrek Digital Oilfield application onto the Microsoft Surface multi-touch presentation platform. The petroleum industry’s first Surface solution was unveiled at this year’s Microsoft Global Energy Forum for the Middle East and Africa.
The co-developed solution combines iStore’s PetroTrek data access technology and oilfield content visualization on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 with Infusion’s custom surface application, Falcon Eye, to give users a powerful new medium for accessing and interacting rapidly with E&P information.
The combined Falcon Eye and PetroTrek Digital Oilfield solution for Microsoft Surface delivers a multi-touch interface for a revolutionary user experience that puts the right information at the fingertips of the right people. The application leverages the GIS capabilities of Microsoft Virtual Earth to give users a top-to-bottom view of an area of operation, such as a producing field.
In addition, it allows users to drill down through the data to specific points of interest, such as wells, facilities and platforms. Production data, charts, key performance indicators (KPIs) and human resources or logistic information are easily plotted in context. Users simply touch the Surface interface to interact with the data, including zooming, panning and scrolling to display various vantage points.
“Out of the box, our new Surface offering gives the petroleum industry a whole new interface to their world that just a few years ago would have been considered science fiction,” said iStore President and CEO Barry Irani.
Added Ezat Zarasvand, iStore’s general manager for the Middle East and Africa: “At a time of sinking oil prices and cost cutting there is strong demand in our industry for cost-effective, compelling and streamlined technology that quickly plugs in to the petroleum enterprise to enhance productivity and improve asset value.”
Falcon Eye, Infusion’s 3D operational dashboard, seamlessly integrates information from multiple sources and displays the data streams on a virtual map. Combined with PetroTrek and displayed on the Microsoft Surface, it provides a unique and appealing experience.
“The appeal of this solution is more than its cutting-edge appearance; it’s in the functionality,” said Vimal Sethi, general manager, Infusion Development – Middle East & Africa. “This solution allows executives to visualize and manage the ‘big picture,’ but it also contributes and assists managers and team members in finding, managing and manipulating E&P data important to their everyday work.”
“Many customers expressed the need for an interactive, collaborative and location-intelligent solution to help them better manage asset performance and empower informed decision making,” said Omar Saleh, Microsoft’s Middle East & Africa Oil & Gas sales manager. “The combined solution from Infusion and iStore – leveraging Microsoft’s Surface, Performance Point and Virtual Earth – provides executives and geoscientists with an unparalleled, out-of-the-box user experience that brings sophisticated asset mapping and drilldown KPI monitoring to their fingertips, while delivering an agile and expandable platform for collaborative and intelligent asset management.”
PetroComputing 