As document industry experts, we’ve seen the revolutionary impact intelligent documents can have on organizations. These aren’t just ordinary pages; they’re dynamic tools driven by data. Intelligent documents empower your knowledgeable employees to craft data-driven communications without the hassle of maintaining countless document templates. Powerful tools like DocOrigin and Business Communications Center make your documents more intelligent and optimize your business operations.
Intelligent documents don’t think for themselves, but they enable your team to work more effectively.
- Adapt logos and color schemes effortlessly.
- Customize language and messaging based on data.
- Include relevant images automatically.
- Streamline compliance with regulatory updates.
With intelligent documents, you’re not just keeping up with change; you’re staying ahead of it.
What is an Intelligent Document?
Intelligent documents stand out because they use data to shape their content dynamically. Imagine a document that automatically changes its logos, color scheme, language, messaging, and even its images based on the data it receives. This adaptability means your organization need not maintain countless templates for different scenarios. Instead, one robust template, driven by real-time data, can cater to multiple needs, accommodating changes swiftly and effortlessly.
Older document composition products did not offer the data-driven flexibility that exists today. With legacy document designs, everything a customer saw on the form overlay was “hard coded”. This included headings, labels, and other elements of business documents that we often think of as “fixed”. Any organization that needed a different version of the form had to make a copy and modify it to meet the new requirements. The only variable data that appeared on statements, invoices, notices, or other common documents included items like the customer’s name and address, account numbers, purchase dates, and amounts.
Many organizations still design documents in this manner–you might even find examples of static form overlays in your own company. In the short term, such an approach is easier and faster. But it limits your ability to react rapidly to changing business conditions.
Companies realize the downside of such an approach when it becomes necessary to change these non-intelligent documents. With multiple versions residing in the document library, companies must first separate current versions from obsolete versions. Then comes the tedious task of updating all those documents. This effort often translates into thousands of labor hours and falls on the shoulders of an already over-tasked IT department. Intelligent documents feature few “hard coded” items. Many items on the form overlays are defined as variables. The actual values can change according to key fields in the data stream that contains the traditional variable data.
Key Components of an Intelligent Document
Data inputs dynamically control the content, structure, and presentation of intelligent documents. These inputs can come from various sources, such as databases, APIs, or user inputs, allowing the document to adapt in real-time to the specific needs and contexts of its audience.
The key feature of an intelligent document is its ability to adjust its logos and branding elements dynamically. For instance, if a company undergoes a rebranding, the intelligent document can automatically update all instances of the old logo and color scheme to the new ones without manual intervention. This ensures consistency and saves time.
Color schemes in intelligent documents can also be data driven. For example, a document intended for a high-priority client might use a different color scheme than one for internal use. You can adjust the color scheme based on the type of document, the recipient, or even the time of year, ensuring the document is always contextually appropriate.
Language and messaging are other critical components controlled by data in intelligent documents. These documents can automatically switch languages based on the recipient’s preferences or location. You can also tie other location-dependent adjustments to triggers in the variable data. The format of dates, phone numbers, or currency symbols can all vary, depending on the country in which your customers are located.
Additionally, companies may tailor the tone and style of the messaging to suit different audiences, such as customers, partners, or internal stakeholders.
You can direct intelligent documents to select images dynamically based on data inputs. For example, an in-document marketing message might feature different images depending on the target demographic or the specific product being highlighted. This ensures the visual content is always relevant and engaging.
Another essential component is integrating business systems. Intelligent documents can pull data from CRM platforms, ERP systems, and other enterprise applications to ensure the information presented in the document is accurate and up-to-date. This integration reduces the risk of errors and ensures the document always reflects the latest data. Intelligent documents offer advanced analytics and tracking capabilities. By embedding tracking codes or using analytics tools, companies can monitor how these documents are being used. You can use this data to further refine and improve the documents, making them even more effective. A good example would be a discount code that allows a company to track the success of a promotional campaign.
Boosting Productivity with Intelligent Documents
Companies that create documents for many clients will find that intelligent documents complement their productivity efforts. Many of these companies merge small jobs from several customers or applications to create more efficient units of work for high-speed inkjet printers. By dynamically changing aspects of the documents, the service provider can sort the output to optimize finishing operations or lower postage costs.
Centralizing content through intelligent documents means maintaining a single source of truth. This centralization ensures all documents use current information, eliminating the risk of inconsistent messaging and simplifying migration to new document characteristics. When business needs shift, implementing changes becomes straightforward, affecting all related documents simultaneously.
Your team will no longer spend hours tweaking hundreds of document templates every time marketing decides on a rebrand or a new regulation gets introduced. Intelligent documents powered by tools like DocOrigin with Business Communications Center handle these changes seamlessly. Your staff needs to update only the master document templates. Once in production, all documents based on the templates will adjust their logos, color schemes, and messaging, ensuring consistency across all customer communications.
With intelligent documents, your knowledgeable employees focus on what they do best: understanding customers and addressing the needs of the organization. Meanwhile, the intelligent documents evolve with the data in real-time, reducing errors and speeding time-to-market.
Intelligent documents enable a more agile and responsive organization. Your team achieves higher productivity levels, cuts down on repetitive tasks, and focuses on value-added activities. Intelligent documents don’t just save time; they also enhance the quality and effectiveness of your business communications.
More Information
To see how to leverage the power of intelligent documents with DocOrigin, check out these quick tutorials that show you how it is done:
Profile Feature to Manage Multilingual & Variable Company Content Forms