From Mainframe ASF to ITP
Many companies have mainframe solutions in place that have been there for many years because of reliability and security of the platform. Many of these setups use ASF to produce business output.
Maintenance of ASF based output requires a specific skill set. This often means that simple textual changes require actions from a technician. Because of this dependency, small changes take a long time to make and time to market is longer than desired.
Developers maintaining ASF templates have limited resources to meet modern day requirements with regards to lay out. Migration from ASF to ITP immediately enables use of all features modern word processors offer and allows output to be sent via new channels like e-mail, but still with the modularity known from ASF with i.e. reusable text blocks.
Migrating ASF output templates
We have experience in converting ASF document templates to proper ITP templates. ASF based templates, text blocks and data definitions can be exported and downloaded to the Windows platform, where they are analyzed. After analysis, logic and content is converted into ITP templates and text blocks. This can then be loaded into the ITP/MDK Repository and extended with i.e. centralized style documents, interactive forms etc.
Mainframe – ITP integration
With the introduction of XML based functionality on the mainframe it became easier to connect to other platforms and applications. By creating XML files with application data needed for the output and using XML WebServices to communicate, connecting with the ITP Document platform is easy.