ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT DELIVERY

Electronic documents can take many forms. One of the most well known are those created by document imaging systems, which are starting to seriously undermine the profits of both filing cabinet manufacturers and commercial real estate owners. But that is not our subject here.

Before a document can be stored, it must be produced and, in most cases, authorized by one or both parties to a transaction. These functions occur at the beginning, middle and end of many electronic transactions, particularly many of the complex ones handled by e-business systems in industries such as insurance and financial services.

The electronic document capability offered in conjunction with WebBusiness Connect e-business systems from The Computer Studio are based on the use documents stored in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format. One of the most important advantages of Acrobat documents is that they can be used to create an exact replica of a highly formatted printed document.

Capabilities for viewing documents in this popular format are built in to virtually every web browser in use today. It is widely used by the IRS and most other government entities as a way of deliveries forms and documents that were previously sent only by mail. Acrobat documents can be easily delivered via e-mail, or by download from a website.

One of the most important characteristics of Acrobat documents (as opposed to documents stored in a document imaging system) is that they can include live data entered by an on-line user, process the data entered in the application, and deliver a finished document to everyone who needs it. The final document can include information entered by the original user (for example, the customer), changes or additions added by others (perhaps a customer service representative) and information taken from a database or processing system. Security features can determine who can enter or change specific values, and everything can be locked once the transaction is completed.