The ‘Appification’ and Automation of Printing Processes

‘Appification’ may not be a word you’re familiar with, and you probably won’t find it in the dictionary, either (at least not yet). When we say ‘appification’, we are referring to the processes and jobs being simplified by the use of applications, in this case, on your printing device.

With solutions like Xerox’s ConnectKey-powered Workplace Assistant, user interfaces on printers are beginning to look more like tablets, and for a good reason. With the introduction of applications that can be accessed directly through the printing device, it’s become possible to add levels of automation to your usual print processes.

These added levels of automation of printing processes can help to increase efficiency and save employee time.

For example, if you’re working on a customer project, or even a sale, you can use the printer applications to speed up everything from communications through to file storage with an application that saves your document to the right place making it faster to access for anyone who needs access.

You could even digitally sign a document and send it back all from within a printer application, saving time where you would previously have to print, sign and scan the document back in before sending it to a third party.

In essence, the ‘appification’ of printing processes is about making workflows, repetitive actions and time-consuming tasks easier, quicker and much more efficient.

The benefits might start small, for example a 25% time saving on a small workflow might not feel like much, but for every bit of time saved, it’s add up to something much greater. There are also benefits for other people involved in the process as the automation of some of your processes and workflows can ensure that information and documents are provided in the preferred format for everyone involved.

Further still, the apps available on the market go far beyond workflow efficiency and can introduce new levels of security, accessibility and other smart features such as the translation of documents.

As odd as it might sound, the printing/scanning/copying part of the process might even be the most time consuming part, as from the minute you scan something in, automated workflows can be triggered to carry out the next action you would need to do.

Or if printing is the end result of the process, then you can cut out some of the steps before and even add extra functionality to the printing, for example, redacting sensitive information from the final print out.

Much like your phone or tablet, the possibilities that apps can offer are endless and while there might be marketplace of available apps, you can also have applications built for your printers that align with your processes and takes into account how you use printing hardware and software.

If you haven’t already, maybe you should be considering the ‘appification’ of your printing processes to increase process efficiency and reduce the time employees spend on time-stealing tasks with smart process automation.