Blog
March 8, 2023
Carl Eisenbrei | Sr. Client Executive
As is true for most industries, accessibility matters in finance and insurance. Accessibility ensures all services and content are available for all users. By providing accessible customer communications, these institutions can better serve all users.
March 1, 2023
Dennis Quon | Director, Accessibility Center of Excellence
Before I led sales at a print service provider (PSP) — and well before my time at Crawford Technologies — I was a student worker. I worked with and for other students in my college to provide an inclusive learning experience. It all started as a way to assist a friend and classmate who was deaf. Put simply, I went to our shared classes, took notes as usual, and then provided them back to the school for my friend and other students who needed them.
February 15, 2023
Scott Baker | Executive Vice President
I enjoy doing puzzles. I have a knack for pattern recognition so they’re a fun way to pass the time. One of the nice things about most puzzles is that the box shows you what you should be making. You have a roadmap. But I’m not going to tell you about a standard puzzle today.
February 8, 2023
Glenn Gross | Accessibility Center of Excellence
Accessibility and usability matter across many aspects of higher education. That said, we can generally break the needs into three categories.
- Accessibility during the school selection process.
- Accessibility once a student is enrolled.
- Ongoing accessibility policies and practices.
January 25, 2023
Harvey Gross | VP, Product Strategy
Archives of legacy content management may be holding you and your business back. You probably know this. What you may not know, however, is how to fix the problem. Fortunately, there’s a solution. We call it the STEP Migration Methodology.
January 18, 2023
Harvey Gross | VP, Product Strategy
According to Security Magazine, there are more than 2,200 cyber-attacks a day. Broken down, that equates to one attack every 39 seconds.
Every day brings news of a new hack or hacking attempt. Because of this, your business has probably prioritized computer system intrusion prevention. You invest in tools that promise digital security. You implement them and assume you're covered. You've taken all the necessary steps to protect sensitive data against unauthorized access. But what if you’re missing something?
January 4, 2023
Ligia Mora | Sr. Product Manager
Especially in the age of automatic deposits, payroll content is too often overlooked. Payroll processors produce highly personal and relevant information for users. And yet, very few make their products, and the content they create, accessible. It’s a huge, missed opportunity — and potential liability.
While there are numerous reasons to make payroll content accessible, in this blog post we’re going to focus on three: inclusivity, privacy / security, and risk mitigation.
November 18, 2022
Harvey Gross | VP, Product Strategy
By now, we all know that customer experience (CX) is a major business differentiator. Particularly in crowded markets, businesses that focus on the customer can gain an advantage. But did you know that 90% of people in the US use their smartphones for banking, checking statements and balances, and making payments? So, as more and more customers move to using mobile devices in place of computers, companies need to adapt.
October 12, 2022
Harvey Gross | VP, Product Strategy
It’s not just toilet paper missing from grocery store shelves, paper products are scarce.
Industry experts agree that we’ve never seen a shortage this big before. We are in the middle of a paper shortage - for coated and uncoated papers. This is putting more pressure on transaction printers and marketing companies. Their core job has not changed. They still have to produce and distribute custom customer communications. But now they also must navigate a scarce market to find the paper and envelopes they need.
September 21, 2022
Kyley Crews | Manager
What it is, why it matters, and how leveraging it can improve your purchasing choices.
What’s a Net Promoter Score?
The Net Promoter Score®, or NPS®, is a customer experience metric used to track customer loyalty. Basically, it serves as a standardized "yardstick" for organizations to gauge customer loyalty. Plus, it allows you to compare scores to organizations in other industries. If an organization wants to make customer experience a priority, the NPS score is a great tool to track progress.March 2, 2022
Adam Armstrong | Product Marketing Manager
Are legacy processes holding your workflow back from pure nirvana?
Is your workflow, legacy software, and old equipment affecting your employees?
As 2022 is now upon us, challenges have continued to pile up for managers that are already dealing with “The New Normal”. Currently, we are less worried about people being out sick and more worried that they are just not going to show up and have joined the “great resignation train”.
February 9, 2022
Aimee Ubbink | Technical Accessibility Manager, EDP PMP
Over time I have seen a variety of ways to create Reference and Note tags. It can be tedious using assistive technology to locate referenced content. There are rules for applying Reference and Note tags, and there is a future thought process by governing bodies.
November 18, 2021
Lynda Hansen | Sr. Manager, Product Management
Many times, the features and services that you offer your clients, your value-add, and your competitive advantage is linked to how easily your CCDP makes doing business and the features that enable you to answer your clients’ needs and wants. Initial implementations of CCDPs replaced the internal “green screen” DOS style interface by providing a … Continue reading "How do you create a Customer Experience Platform as a Business Outsource Provider?"
October 13, 2021
Erin McCart | Sr. Manager, Product Management
Actively managing preferences for customer communications started in the early 2000’s with companies promoting electronic delivery (eDelivery) of statements, bills and explanation of benefits to reduce their print and mail spend. Since then, companies and consumers have been operating in a hybrid analog/digital world. For example, it wasn’t uncommon for companies to print and mail customer communications, fax them when requested, and email them too.
October 7, 2021
Ligia Mora | Product Marketing Manager
Most organizations who distribute and share information are familiar with document accessibility. If you are one of these organizations and have done your due diligence, you know that it is important to make documents accessible. In other words, you must remediate your documents before they are shared or distributed. The type of documents you provide will determine which remediation process you should follow. For example, if you are sharing published documents such as brochures, data sheets, manuals, etc. that contain static information, you would require a manual document remediation tool. If you are dealing with cyclical documents such as bills, statements, EOBs, etc. that contain variable, or transactional, customer data, you would require an automated document remediation tool like AccessibilityNow Designer.
September 15, 2021
Adam Armstrong | Sr. Product Manager
Recently Madison Advisors completed an in-depth Post-Composition Analysis of some of the leading solutions.
“The line between document composition and post composition software is starting to blur due to the fact that post composition software, once considered a tool to “fix” applications prior to print production, has now evolved into a multifaceted solution with feature-rich capabilities for enhancing and managing customer communications.”
September 1, 2021
Lynda Hansen | Sr. Product Manager
Document QA is without question critical for all customer communication providers. The consequences of inadequate document QA processes range from lost productivity, downstream delays, missed SLAs and costly rework to a poor Customer Experience(CX).
July 14, 2021
Jen Goulden | Accessibility Compliance Specialist
Providing accessible documents is not only a legal requirement. It’s also good customer service. Once you tag your files for accessibility, the best way to ensure compliance is to put them through a rigorous quality control process. This is true whether you provide one-off remediation or you’re implementing an accessible e-presentment solution for your transactional material.
June 30, 2021
Erin McCart | Sr. Product Manager
The impact personalizing customer communications has on business, customer loyalty, and corporate profits
Customer attitudes towards business’ have changed. McKinsey & Company found that customers expect better consistency, quality, availability, and value from organizations, whether that is making a purchase online, interacting with customer service, or receiving communications such as bills, statements, and invoices. Customers also want to customize their experience so it will be personalized for them. If enterprises cannot meet consumer expectations, then they will switch to new and different businesses that will provide products and services that will meet their expectations.
May 18, 2021
Harvey Gross | VP, products
It’s often said that any discussion of commercial software must include the cloud computing discussion. Let’s take a look at why this makes sense and review the advantages of cloud computing, particularly for CCM producers.
May 14, 2021
Lynda Hansen | Sr. Product Manager
As ERP systems and policy generation platforms have migrated to generating PDF output, the demands on post composition systems have increased drastically to accommodate the limited scope of these systems.
April 28, 2021
Ernie Crawford | CEO & President
At Crawford Technologies, our number one priority is making our customers happy with our products, services and solutions. We look at ourselves through their eyes to understand where we’re meeting and exceeding expectations, and what opportunities exist for us to improve.
April 14, 2021
Ernie Crawford | CEO & President
On May 5, 2020, Crawford Tech’s Virtual Summit will be our biggest interactive and complimentary event. This year’s Summit will bring together industry experts, business and IT professionals, and senior executives to discuss strategic and practical ways for organizations to continue their transformative journeys and provide outstanding customer communications and experiences.
March 25, 2021
Jen Goulden | Accessibility Compliance Specialist
Why is Accessibility Important?
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are an estimated 285 million people worldwide who are blind or partially sighted, with 39 million being blind and 246 million having low vision. (Medicine).February 24, 2021
Adam Armstrong | Sr. Product Manager
- Where is my print job?
- Have my statements and letters been mailed?
- When will those documents be delivered?
- Have I re-couped postage and production cost by line of business?
February 17, 2021
Erin McCart | Sr. Product Manager
In a customer first, transformative digital world, organizations are finding it difficult to manage the content they produce, provide lines of business with greater interoperability between business systems and applications, and output content quickly, securely and accurately based on consumer preferences – print/mail, email, text, video, accessible document, etc.
January 20, 2021
Erin McCart | Sr. Manager, Product Management
20 years ago, the average consumer used two touchpoints when buying an item and only 7% regularly used more than four. Today consumers use an average of almost six touchpoints with nearly 50% regularly using more than four. (Marketing Week) And that’s not including the after purchase touchpoints including, invoicing, billing, shipping, service and support, and feedback.
December 22, 2020
Lynda Hansen | Sr. Manager, Product Management
As the pandemic altered our everyday lives, organizations raced to implement digital transformation initiatives to facilitate Work from Home (WFH) policies and procedures in order to minimize business disruptions and ensure their employee's safety. But in the haste to get digital initiatives implemented, were critical paper-based processes overlooked? How was the volume of ad-hoc or small batch correspondence that still needed to be physically mailed handled?
December 11, 2020
Lynda Hansen | Sr Product Manager
We are pleased to announce the release of CrawfordTech version DTE 4.12. DTE or Digital Transform Engine, which is the core software infrastructure used in all Crawford Technologies’ print and document conversion and enhancement solutions.
September 22, 2020
Erin McCart | Sr. Product Manager
Crawford Technologies and Nuxeo, a leading enterprise Content Services Platform (CSP) have developed a new reseller partnership and platform integration that gives Nuxeo the ability to provide organizations a seamless way to move high-volume transactional documents and associated customer communications, regardless of format, into the Nuxeo CSP.
August 26, 2020
Harvey Gross | VP, products
Over the last few years, success in the document print and mail service business has required a different approach from the past. To remain relevant and useful to clients, many service providers have recognized the business trends their clients are experiencing and have made the investments necessary to support them.
August 12, 2020
Jen Goulden | Accessibility Compliance Specialist
If you’ve been tasked with implementing accessibility in your organization you’ll know that there are many questions to consider. Which formats should you offer your customers? Should you prioritize certain document types and what should you do about legacy content? These are all valid questions but one of the most important considerations is whether your files will be remediated at- or post-composition. So how do you determine which is the best approach to take?
July 22, 2020
Jen Goulden | Accessibility Compliance Specialist
There’s no question that documents and web content need to be made accessible, but there is much debate about which formats to offer. For instance, when should organizations provide Accessible PDF and when should they focus on HTML? One reason for this ongoing debate is that there are several myths about which of these two formats is “better”.
July 16, 2020
Lynda Hansen | Sr. Manager, Product Management
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
How many of you have taken that approach with a home project when money is tight and don’t have the time? Why meddle with something that is working “OK.”
June 24, 2020
Jen Goulden | Accessibility Compliance Specialist
Document accessibility discussions tend to focus on how to comply with the various standards and guidelines for a given format, and rightly so. Making your documents accessible is essential, but there are also some bigger picture issues to consider.
June 18, 2020
Lynda Hansen | Sr. Manager, Product Management
We are pleased to announce the release of CrawfordTech version DTE 4.11. DTE or Digital Transform Engine, which is the foundation of the CrawfordTech solution portfolio, encompassing our document transformation and reengineering technology as well as our document accessibility conversion software and other supporting solutions.
May 20, 2020
Harvey Gross | VP, products
This is a question on the mind of governance groups everywhere, and the reality is that many organizations still have gaps when it comes to securing their data and documents once they leave the control of IT managed systems and processes.
April 29, 2020
Ligia Mora | Senior Product Manager
Chances are you are already dealing with document remediation, or making documents accessible, if you are creating documents that will be shared in the digital world. If you are not dealing with remediation but do share documents digitally, then you might want to consider looking into it as rules and regulations are consistently increasing and getting stricter, making it a requirement.
April 24, 2020
Lynda Hansen | Sr. Manager, Product Management
What should you wear to this event?
This is a really important question given the current environment we are all living in right now. Let me share the good news - what you wear is totally up to you! Be as comfy as you want! You don't have to wear a suit and tie, a name badge and what's even more important - there's no need to worry about social distancing, so you don't have to wear a mask. That is unless you have a really cool mask that you like to wear around your home or office.
April 22, 2020
Harvey Gross | VP, products
Look at any modern archive or enterprise content management system and it will include the concept of an Archival Information Package. In legacy archives the concept of an AIP was usually synonymous with a batch – for example an application might generate a file contain several thousand data records (customer statements) and this package of digital documents would be loaded into the archive in one go. In modern ECM systems AIPs are often smaller units, for example a case file related to specific customer activity that has now concluded.
April 1, 2020
Harvey Gross | VP, Product Management
As organizations continue to redefine internal and customer driven requirements for enterprise content systems, the importance of managing and delivering digital content has driven decision making and has influenced the move away from traditional content management systems.
March 4, 2020
Jen Goulden | Project & Quality Manager
Have you been tasked with implementing document accessibility in your organization? Are you looking for a solution that can handle a wide range of accessible formats and document types? CrawfordTech’s AccessibilityNow platform provides high levels of automation and integration into any environment. The platform includes software solutions and a wide range of services that can meet the document accessibility needs of any organization. This comprehensive platform supports the unique processing requirements of high-volume transactional documents as well as static content of all types.
February 21, 2020
Mike Zimmer | Strategic Partner Manager
Crawford Technologies is pleased to be sponsoring, exhibiting, and speaking at the 2020 AIIM Conference in Dallas March 3rd to the 5th. We provide software solutions and services that help enterprises optimize and improve the secure and accessible delivery, storage and e-presentment of their customer communications documents.
February 18, 2020
Lynda Hansen | Sr. Manager, Product Management
We are pleased to announce the release of CrawfordTech version 4.10. DTE or Digital Transform Engine, which is the foundation of the CrawfordTech portfolio, encompassing our document transformation and reengineering technology in addition to accessible conversions and other supporting solutions.
February 12, 2020
Harvey Gross | VP, products
This is a question on the mind of governance groups everywhere, and the reality is that many organizations still have gaps when it comes to securing their data and documents once they leave the control of IT managed systems and processes.
January 8, 2020
Harvey Gross | VP, Product Management
Businesses that create exceptional customer experience (CX) can gain an advantage over their competitors. They recognize that communications are critical to establishing and maintaining customer relationships and that personalizing the delivery of customer communications is essential to the success of their CX strategy. Consumers expect a seamless, consistent experience across the various channels and devices used to interact with a marketing or transactional communication. In the mobile-first world in which we work and live, businesses need to ensure that all customer communications are constructed and delivered in a mobile-ready format, that responds to the device being used.
December 4, 2019
Harvey Gross | VP, Product Management
For years, decades really, legacy solutions have dominated the document storage and retrieval arena for customer communications management (CCM) documents. Although domination of this niche market seems to be changing, I think it’s important to fully understand what CCM means in this context.
November 20, 2019
Harvey Gross | VP, products
When service providers look at their workflows, or consider implementing a modified or completely new workflow, many factors come into play. Automation is of course the ultimate goal. Increasing throughput, decreasing the number of labor-intensive human “touches”, and making it easier to handle exceptions are just a few of the many benefits that come from automation.
November 13, 2019
Harvey Gross | VP, products
One of the biggest headaches experienced by printers today is managing the increasing number of small jobs. Companies that invested in equipment and software optimized for high volume production are seeing their operations become less efficient as they try to juggle the processing characteristics of multiple jobs that have shrunk in volume.
November 6, 2019
Jen Goulden | Project & Quality Manager
If you work in the field of accessibility you will inevitably find yourself needing to refer to various disabilities, or to the people who have them. Politically correct language is not new, yet there is still a lot of confusion as to which terms are acceptable and which are not. And as if this were not enough, there are a host of clichés and idiomatic expressions that make mention – usually with negative connotations – of people with disabilities. So how do you discuss things like assistive technology and accessible documents while navigating what might feel like a linguistic minefield?
September 26, 2019
Lynda Hansen | Sr. Manager, Product Management
Job Onboarding. Those two words typically induce groans and frustrated grimaces amongst print operations managers. Even with all the workflow automation solutions available to streamline processes and reduce manual intervention, job onboarding remains one of the top workflow bottlenecks that impacts your profitability and your opportunities to win new clients and contracts. The easy answer to resolve this may be to add additional resources.
September 13, 2019
Jane Black | Channel Manager, Document Accessibility
As businesses and organizations move more of their customer interactions online, web accessibility is now reaching the top of the enterprise priority list in Europe. Ensuring equal access for disabled users to websites and other important customer communications, is being driven not only by recent changes in EU legislation, but also by the size and strength of the market itself – some $6 trillion of disabled spending power globally. In Europe, 30 million people currently live with blindness or a visual impairment and approximately 80 million with a disability. With these figures set to triple by 2050 and new EU Accessibility legislation taking effect in the coming months, businesses that have a comprehensive digital accessibility strategy in place will be sure to see the greatest success.
September 10, 2019
Jane Black | Channel Manager
As a Print Service Provider keeping the data that you process secure, on behalf of your customers, has always been top of your priority list. With a customer base consisting of banks, insurance companies, utilities and telcos, the documents that you print and mail often contain sensitive and confidential information - and data breaches containing data of this nature have never been good for business.
August 28, 2019
Ligia Mora | Business Development Manager
Regulations are driving the accessibility market and unless corporations are ready to pay high fines, it is crucial for businesses to comply with the worldwide regulations that govern document accessibility and to provide barrier-free customer experiences to this underserved market. Having a solution that adjusts to the market while meeting strict regulations and adapts to the ever-growing needs of any environment, is not only desirable but essential.
August 15, 2019
Jen Goulden | Project & Quality Manager
Testing is a critical element in the document accessibility process. This is true whether you are providing one-off transcriptions or you’re implementing an accessible e-presentment solution for your transactional material. Accessible document producers generally include a quality assurance phase in their workflow but if you require additional testing you have a couple of options. You can review the output internally or you can work with a third-party tester.
August 7, 2019
Harvey Gross | VP, Product Management
As organizations continue to redefine internal and customer driven requirements for enterprise content systems, the importance of managing and delivering digital content has driven decision making and has influenced the move away from traditional content management systems.
July 31, 2019
Lynda Hansen | Sr. Manager, Product Management
Most of us have heard the phrase "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Essentially it means don't meddle with something that is functioning adequately. Perhaps that may be true with home projects, but adequate does not work in today's competitive world of print and mail outsourcing. Print and mail service providers don't win or keep jobs and clients when their tools, systems and processes are just adequate. But given the many other areas that need focus on a daily basis, it can be easy to just deal with processes and tools that "ain't broke".
July 24, 2019
Harvey Gross | VP, Product Management
This is a question on the mind of governance groups everywhere, and the reality is that many organizations still have gaps when it comes to securing their data and documents once they leave the control of IT managed systems and processes.
July 18, 2019
Jane Black | Channel Manager, Document Accessibility
There are many compelling business reasons for companies to embrace accessibility. We recently considered some of these in two blogs; The Business Case for Accessibility and Digital Inclusion – A call to action. Inclusivity, improved brand identity, a better customer experience and innovation to name a few. However achieving compliance with accessibility legislation, which mandates that visually impaired and disabled customers have equal access to products and services, is often the first reason that organizations act.
June 27, 2019
Lynda Hansen | Product Marketing Manager
Even though the first half of 2019 is almost behind us, it is still not too late to take advantage of the USPS Postage promotions and offset the new postage rate increases. While some promotions are ending, you should still plan to take advantage of the remaining promotions that run through the holiday season such as Mobile Shopping, Personalized Color Transpromo and the new Informed Delivery promotion.
June 19, 2019
When service providers look at their workflows, or consider implementing a modified or completely new workflow, many factors come into play. Automation is of course the ultimate goal. Increasing throughput, decreasing the number of labor-intensive human “touches”, and making it easier to handle exceptions are just a few of the many benefits that come from automation.
June 14, 2019
Jane Black | Business Development and Channel Manager
In the UK alone the ‘purple pound’ is worth around £249 billion. Globally, the combined spending power of disabled people is reported to be, a staggering, $6 trillion. As these figures only take into account people who live with a permanent disability, and not anyone who may be experiencing a temporary or situational impairment, it is undoubtedly a conservative estimate. Add to this the projected growth figures due to an ageing population and you have to wonder why companies are not focusing more of their time and effort on attracting and servicing the needs of this valuable market.
June 6, 2019
Tim Nelms | VP WW Channels & Alliances/International Sales
In our last post we looked at some of the critical concerns for migrating legacy customer communication archives to next generation ECM platforms. But aside from technological solutions, you also need practical ones and best practices to successfully migrate a customer communications archive.
June 5, 2019
Harvey Gross | VP, Product Management
Businesses that create an exceptional customer experience (CX) can gain an advantage over their competitors. They recognize that communications are critical to establishing and maintaining customer relationships and that personalizing the delivery of customer communications is essential to the success of their CX strategy. Consumers expect a seamless, consistent experience across the various channels and devices used to interact with a marketing or transactional communication. In the mobile-first world in which we work and live, businesses need to ensure that all customer communications are constructed and delivered in a mobile-ready format, that responds to the device being used.
May 30, 2019
Tim Nelms | VP WW Channels & Alliances/International Sales
In out last post we looked at the ideal characteristics of a next generation customer communication archiving platform. In this post we look at one some of the critical concerns for migrating legacy customer communication archives to next generation ECM platforms.
May 29, 2019
Lynda Hansen | Sr. Manager, Product Management
We are pleased to announce the release of CrawfordTech version 4.9. DTE or Digital Transform Engine, which is the foundation of the CrawfordTech portfolio, encompassing our document transformation and reengineering technology in addition to accessible conversions and other supporting solutions.
May 23, 2019
Tim Nelms | VP WW Channels & Alliances/International Sales
So, your customer communications archive is old, obsolete, costly, and complex to maintain. It is for those reasons, along with the desire to boost information governance, compliance and to enable better business process management that organizations decide to make the move to a next generation document archive. In this blog we look at what makes an ideal next generation customer communication archiving platform.
May 10, 2019
Jane Black | Business Development & Channel Manager
When the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) announced the launch of its Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) in 1997, Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web stated that “the power of the web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.”
April 24, 2019
Harvey Gross | VP, Products
Accessible Documents
Accessible digital documents, which are principally Accessible PDF and HTML5 are a rapidly growing required format and delivery obligation for many enterprises – especially those that deal in any way with governmental entities. There is significant risk and surprisingly high cost in adopting the narrow minimalist “Accommodation Strategy” that many companies follow. This approach exposes companies to unplanned and unbudgeted risk and expense of litigation as well as reactive remediation labor and cost in the effort to make documents accessible as “one-off” exercises.
April 10, 2019
Katrina Fox | Marketing Specialist
In the past few years CrawfordTech has frequently referenced our Net Promoter Scores. In 2017, we proudly announced that we had received a +63, in 2018 we announced a great score of +68 and in March of this year, we issued a press release that our latest NPS score is +75! But what does this mean? And why would anyone care? Is a +68 or +75 really that great? After all, when we were all in school a score like that would have meant getting a D, or at best a C.
April 3, 2019
Dennis Quon | Director, Document Accessibility Solutions
There is something a foot in Florida. Municipalities and small businesses are under attack from disability activists. In the past couple months, we’ve seen every municipality and a good number of businesses receive demand letters threatening of a lawsuit if their websites and documents are not made accessible.
March 27, 2019
Tim Nelms | VP WW Channels & Alliances/International Sales
Look at any modern archive or enterprise content management system and it will include the concept of an Archival Information Package. In legacy archives the concept of an AIP was usually synonymous with a batch – for example an application might generate a file contain several thousand data records (customer statements) and this package of digital documents would be loaded into the archive in one go. In modern ECM systems AIPs are often smaller units, for example a case file related to specific customer activity that has now concluded.
March 21, 2019
Harvey Gross | VP, products
A common theme underscores the major trends happening in customer communications. It’s output production workflow.
March 14, 2019
Doug Koppenhofer | Senior Field Sales Executive
The successful mantra of organizations striving for digital accessibility is: “always direct efforts at the source applications” because unless you address accessibility issues there, it will be impossible to keep up as changes propagate throughout content over time. This works swimmingly for website design where you have relatively few source systems, and proven strategies that can be employed equally well across those systems.
March 7, 2019
Harvey Gross | Executive VP, Product Management
As organizations continue to redefine internal and customer driven requirements for enterprise content systems, the importance of managing and delivering digital content has driven decision making and has influenced the move away from traditional content management systems.
February 27, 2019
Jen Goulden | Project & Quality Manager
If you work with customer communications you’ve no doubt come across complex tables. Conveying information through tables is becoming more prevalent, so it’s important to be aware of the issues that document accessibility specialists face when trying to make tabular content both compliant and useable.
February 21, 2019
Jane Black | Business Development & Channel Manager
Next week Lucerne in Switzerland will once again welcome around 6,000 visitors from more than 50 countries to the much anticipated Hunkeler Innovation Days, which return to the city for 2019. This prestigious biennial event, where the world’s leading print solution vendors exhibit by ‘invitation only’, never fails to impress its attendees with a dazzling array of product innovations, new solutions and larger than life demonstrations, packed in to two exhibition halls over the show’s four day duration.
February 6, 2019
Katrina Fox | Marketing Specialist
Companies sometimes create inefficient document production workflows out of necessity. From a hodgepodge of manual and automated steps, comes a new job or application that somehow becomes the permanent procedure. It is not unusual to see the same jobs, running under the original ad hoc workflows, still processing several years later.
January 30, 2019
Tim Nelms | VP WW Channels & Alliances/International Sales
ePresentment services are essential components of the processes that allow consumers to access documents via web portals and mobile devices. At the most basic level they are also used in large organizations to distribute internal documents and reports. However, it’s behind the scenes that ePresentment services get interesting. In this post, we’ll look at the key functions of ePresentment services – bursting, transformation and viewing.
January 23, 2019
Katrina Fox | Marketing Specialist
It’s not a secret that composition solutions have a level of complexity when it comes to creating and editing communication templates. Despite efforts to create WYSIWYG interfaces that resemble or even plug into Microsoft Word or Adobe InDesign, the complex business rules that drive the content and testing required to ensure integrity of the communications can be a barrier when it comes to making what seems to be minor changes.
January 17, 2019
Jane Black | Business Development & Channel Manager
What is a standard?
ISO, the International Organization for Standardization, states on its website that it was founded with the simple idea of providing answers to a fundamental question. “What's the best way of doing this?”
January 10, 2019
Scott Baker | Executive Vice President
Document accessibility is a very hot topic for many organizations today. Both mainstream and industry press are publishing more articles about the significant fines that high profile companies are paying to settle lawsuits for noncompliance with current accessibility regulations like the ADA, the ACA, the Section 508 ICT refresh, and others. Most organizations are aware of these regulatory mandates to provide documents in accessible formats upon request to their blind, partially sighted, and cognitively disabled customers. However, they struggle to identify and understand the best methods to fulfil these requests. Many companies will look to their print service providers for guidance or to handle accessibility requests from their customers on their behalf.
December 31, 2018
Katrina Fox | Marketing Specialist
We’d like to wish all of you a Happy New Year and extend our best wishes for a prosperous and peaceful 2019.
December 24, 2018
Katrina Fox | Marketing Specialist
The Crawford Technologies team would like to warmly wish you joy and happiness this holiday season and throughout the coming year.
December 20, 2018
Tim Nelms | VP WW Channels & Alliances/International Sales
Archival standards lie in two distinct areas. First there are the working practices and processes of archiving, which involve using effective classification schemes, subject taxonomies and meta-data indexes to ensure that what we store can also be found. The second area is archival standards, dealing with the media or more accurately the format that is used to preserve content.
December 12, 2018
Stephanie Pieruccini | Product Marketing Manager
Even though program participation has increased every year since the US Postal Service began offering mailers postage discounts through promotional programs, no promotions were active in 2018. The reason? The USPS Board of Governors, which must approve price changes, had no members.
December 5, 2018
Jen Goulden | Project and Quality Manager
It’s been 20 years since I completed my Master’s degree. Without a doubt, accessibility in the education sector has changed drastically since my student days. Accessible PDF, Accessible HTML and refreshable braille are just some of the technological advances that have revolutionized the way people access information if they are unable to use conventional print. Legal requirements have also changed the landscape for students of all ages. Whatever your role in the education sector, you’re probably aware that document accessibility is a right, not a privilege.
November 29, 2018
Stephanie Pieruccini | Product Marketing Manager
We are pleased to announce the release of CrawfordTech version 4.8. DTE or Digital Transform Engine, which is the foundation of the CrawfordTech portfolio, encompassing our document transformation and reengineering technology in addition to accessible conversions and other supporting solutions.
November 20, 2018
Harvey Gross | Vice President, Product Management
As organizations continue to redefine internal and customer driven requirements for enterprise content systems, the importance of managing and delivering digital content has driven decision making and has influenced the move away from traditional content management systems.
November 14, 2018
Stephanie Pieruccini | Product Marketing Manager
One of the biggest headaches experienced by printers today is managing small jobs. Companies that invested in equipment and software optimized for high volume production are seeing their operations become less efficient as they try to juggle the processing characteristics of multiple jobs that have shrunk in volume.
November 7, 2018
Jen Goulden | Project and Quality Manager
When you think of accessible PDF files, elements such as lists, headings and tables probably come to mind. If you’re testing files you’ll make sure that complex tables have been properly tagged, that the heading hierarchy is correct and that alt text has been applied where needed. This is a good place to start, but there are other important things to consider.
November 1, 2018
Jane Black | Business Development and Channel Manager
This is the seventh and final post in our blog series about the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulations, which came in to full effect on 25th May this year (2018).
October 24, 2018
Stephanie Pieruccini | Product Manager
A common theme underscores the major trends happening in customer communications. It’s workflow.
Process automation and workflow are critical for success in omni-channel communications and full color inkjet document production. Workflow also plays a sizeable role in regulatory compliance and outsourcing strategies. And mergers and acquisitions are making multi-site management a priority, which also demands reliable workflows.
October 17, 2018
Jen Goulden | Project and Quality Manager
On October 15th and 16th the 2nd annual A11yTO conference took place at Telus Digital in downtown Toronto. The event brought together developers, end users and other accessibility professionals from Canada and around the world. Presenters discussed disability legislation and looked at practical ways to build accessibility into the web sites, electronic documents and mobile devices that most of us use every day. A myth that is all too prevalent is that accessibility is only necessary for things we consider to be essential. The A11yTO team dispels this myth by including sessions on accessible gaming and captioning for movies and TV shows.
October 11, 2018
Leslie Wengenroth | Director of Marketing
CrawfordTech recently exhibited at Print ’18, where we were honored with a Red Hot Technology award in the Workflow Automation category for QA in the Cloud.
October 4, 2018
Jane Black | Business Development & Channel Manager
Last Thursday, 27 September 2018, saw the first European M-Enabling Forum take place in Düsseldorf, Germany. M-enabling has of course been an annual event in Washington for some years now, but a forum in Europe is a welcome addition to the programme, providing the opportunity for European companies and organisations to keep pace with global developments in accessibility and more specifically with trends specific to Europe. It also provides a localised opportunity for networking with colleagues working in associated and complimentary fields.
September 26, 2018
Harvey Gross | Vice President, Product Management
For years, the promise of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) systems was that business content of any type could be stored in one monolithic repository and would be available to any authorized party with the right credentials. For a variety of reasons, this ideal was never reached.
September 25, 2018
Jane Black | Business Development and Channel Manager
It’s undeniable that MasterONE, Crawford Technologies’ accessibility architecture, is a game changer. For document producers MasterONE enables them to take any incoming print stream, whether AFP, PDF, PCL, Metacode, PostScript or Line data, create a single accessibility design template, and drive output to multiple accessible formats, such as Accessible PDF, Accessible HTML, Braille, Large Print and Audio.
September 12, 2018
Leslie Wengenroth | Director of Marketing
When service providers look at their workflows, or consider implementing a modified or completely new workflow, many factors come into play. Automation is of course the ultimate goal. Increasing throughput, decreasing the number of labor-intensive human “touches”, and making it easier to handle exceptions are just a few of the many benefits that come from automation.
September 6, 2018
Jane Black | Business Development & Channel Manager
This is the sixth post in our blog series about the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulations, which came in to full effect on 25th May this year (2018).
