Converting existing templates to ITP Models
Some of the major work involved with ITP implementation projects can be in regard to document templates (ITP Models). New ITP clients often have hundreds of templates and text blocks that need to be converted to ITP Models. Over the years, we at Aia Software have gained a great deal of experience in both manually converting existing templates into ITP Models as well as automatic conversion.
A 100% automatic conversion, in which the existing templates are converted 1:1 to ITP Models, may sound like a good idea, but, if we consider the demands, we may think differently. Our customers use ITP to increase competitive advantage. This requires a well-considered set-up of the ITP Models and the use of the latest ITP functionality. One of the main demands is a component based set-up of the ITP Models and the use of objects that can managed by the business such as text blocks, dynamic forms and content wizards. The component based set-up of ITP guarantees that the maintenance of ITP Models is optimized.
One of our customers is currently migrating ASF templates from a mainframe to ITP. This customer in particular has, in the region of 500 templates and thousands of text blocks. Of course, the possibility of a (partial) conversion plays an important role in this project.
Keeping the demand for a good component based structure in mind, it was decided to create the basic components manually to guarantee a robust set-up. Keeping the demands for the use of latest ITP functionality in mind, the ASF text blocks will be migrated to ITP dynamic text blocks that can easily be managed by business users. The templates will be automatically converted as well. This approach offers the best of both worlds: automatic conversion where possible and manual conversion where needed resulting in an optimal ITP Models set-up that can be realized within a limited time frame.
Each ITP project is unique. The choice between manual conversion and automatic conversion can play a role in each project. The best strategy is chosen depending on the requirement and structure of existing templates.