RC Bigelow chose LaserVault Reports so they could have remote access to their AS/400 reports.
LaserVault is an easy-to-use alternative to printing and filing paper reports
RC Bigelow, of Constant Comment fame, sold over a billion cups of tea last year. Needless to say, such a large company produces a mass of data. We talked with Bob Dupree, Director of Information Technology, and Tina Dube, Technical Support Administrator, about the LaserVault document management system and how it has helped RC Bigelow’s IT department extract and archive reports from their AS/400, saving them time and money.
Remote access to AS/400 reports
“One of the great things about LaserVault is that we can electronically distribute reports to all of our users, on site as well as off-site,” Bob explains. “Our sales force finds it useful. They simple dial-in and immediately have access to AS/400 reports via LaserVault. Besides that, we have a food service company that distributes all of our teas to different food service customers. They are located in Shelton Connecticut, and from there they have the ability to extract their numbers, and just their numbers, from our main office. So people get the information much quicker than ever before and the fact that my computer operator doesn’t have to stand there and print various reports every single day for users is an added bonus.”
“Security is based on the access control list,” says Tina, “which determines what people can see and what they cannot see. It’s great, because different managers or different departments might want certain reports, but also to not allow somebody else to see those reports, whether it be financial information or not.”
"We are thrilled with the product and thrilled with the support.”
-Bob Dupree,
Director of Information Technology
End users adapted to it quickly
“The end users love it,” Tina says, “it saves them from having to fish through reports to find the information they need. They can just go online and search for the information they want. They find LaserVault very easy to use, to print off of, to do whatever they need to do.”
Bob remarks, “Originally, when we first rolled LaserVault out to the end users, they were a little skeptical. It was a little tough to get them off of paper initially. Like anything else that is new, it took them some time to get used to it. But now the users love it, they rely heavily on it, and it’s become a very critical application here.”
Management loves LaserVault
“Management loves it.” Bob says. “My boss, who’s the CFO, has been pushing for paperless systems for the past seven years, since I arrived here. So he’s thrilled that people can look at things electronically and not have to waste paper. We don’t have to have cabinets and cabinets filled with just reports because everything is online.”
LaserVault is perfect for the AS/400
“Integration is seamless – there are very few issues there” explains Bob. “Most people don’t even realize where the information is coming from. I mean, they obviously know the information is coming from the AS/400 but the way that it gets to users is seamless.”
“We have no problem with the way the AS/400 integrates with LaserVault,” Tina adds, “It’s very simple and very quick. Spool files on the AS/400 obviously take up a lot of room if you don’t clean them continuously, so it’s been a big help to get the reports off the AS/400 and onto LaserVault.”
Download this case study as a PDF