SPOKANE, Wash. - Olivetti North America has announced that it will sell five JetForm Corp. products in conjunction with its Pinnacle Plus branch automation software.
Based in Boston, JetForm develops products that design, fill, transmit, and print forms. Olivetti North America, previously ISC/Bunker Ramo, is based in Spokane and is a subsidiary of Olivetti International, an information technology company headquartered in Italy.
According to Janice Tabbut, a product manager at Olivetti, many banks still manually produce forms at print shops, a procedure that takes a great deal of time.
"You'd typically develop a template, send it around for approvals at the bank, integrate everyone's comments, generate an another model, and get additional approvals," she said. "Then you print up the forms, store and distribute them as needed. It's time-consuming process."
Another problem is that forms become obsolete when a regulation or rule changes.
On-Line Construction
With JetForm, bank executives can construct templates on-line and pass documents electronically among themselves for viewing. In addition, documents can be printed on an as-needed basis, eliminating the need to print and store reams of paper.
With Pinnacle Plus branch automation software, bankers get additional advantages from JetForm. For example, when a customer comes into a bank that uses Pinnacle Plus and fills out an account application on-line, the representative never has to ask the customer a question twice. When pieces of information like an address or place of work are typed into Pinnacle Plus, the system recognizes the fields of data and uses them accordingly.
Once an application is complete, the customer information is sent to an external "merge" program, integrated into the appropriate JetForm document and printed out for signature and verification.
Voice of Experience
Ms. Tabbut said that the JetForm products are now available to all users of Pinnacle Plus. The first Olivetti customer to take advantage of the new functionality is First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Rochester, N.Y. The bank is rolling out a pilot program at the end of the year.
"I know from experience that streamlining the document generation process can have an impact on customer service," said Ms. Tabbut. "I just refinanced my mortgage and the representative asked me my address four different times. This doesn't have to happen."
