Producing annual reports without worry? It can be done just fine…
In many a marketing and communications department it is all hands on deck at the end of the first quarter. A once quiet office environment was transformed into a workplace full of activity. All resources are deployed to not only make the annual reports of the past year as beautiful as possible, but more importantly, to provide them with the most up-to-date texts and figures. This process involves several parties including financial experts, lawyers, CEOs, board members, editors, copywriters and designers.
To say that it is no easy task to coordinate the data between all the parties involved is an understatement. It quickly becomes a jumble of Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel files that can be found everywhere and nowhere. Data gets lost, colleagues do not have the latest versions of documents, designers do not use the latest information, erroneous data appears,… Then it turns out that a classic manual workflow, where files are shared in a larger group of colleagues, becomes quite a task.
One of the solutions ideally suited to support teams in the production of annual reports is vjoon K4. This application has long been an established feature in almost every editorial environment. Meanwhile, it is also gaining momentum in many marketing departments.
vjoon K4 is a cross-media editorial system that makes it possible to edit and assign layouts and texts to all stakeholders at the same time. It keeps track of the statuses of all documents and notifies users if changes have been made to texts, tables or images. Users are also notified in case of design changes.
vjoon K4 provides seamless integration of the standard Adobe InDesign and Adobe InCopy programs. In addition, other file types can be integrated into a separate workflow. The central element of vjoon K4 is the database server, which manages all publishing settings and user rights. The management console is accessible via a Web browser. vjoon K4 consists of several components including the K4 server, K4 Web portal, K4-overview and the K4-XML exporter.
In the following, we list some of the advantages that make this system ideally suited for preparing annual reports.
Publications and issues
Documents can very easily be organized into publications. A publication, in this case our annual reports, can consist of several issues. Our previous editions remain accessible, which can make it considerably easier to reproduce elements.
Producing accurate content becomes much easier. No new applications, but integration with the tools colleagues already know and use. This ensures that the latest up-to-date information will be present in print editions, as well as in all digital channels.
Online
Supporting marketing teams becomes child’s play. All targeted graphic content for online and social media channels can now be found in one central location.
Customized automations
Create more consistent content with less time by using automatic steps. Thanks to XML exports, it becomes easy to forward text to other systems, platforms and translation solutions. Automatic publishing to WordPress or Drupal CMS systems can be done at the touch of a button. Automatic sending to financial portals can also be set up.
Efficient collaboration
Teams, wherever they are in the world, can easily collaborate in one system. Simultaneous text writing, tabulation, annual report design and approval process complement each other perfectly.
Real-time communication
By using queries, emails, notifications and post-its, team members can communicate efficiently and everyone is always aware of their tasks and associated deadlines.
A clear overview
An overview of all Adobe InDesign files is displayed in a web interface with their assigned status. Each status has its own color, allowing potential bottlenecks to be quickly detected.
Simple approval management
‘Go’ or ‘no-go’ with a simple mouse click. Speed up the production of financial reports by using a reserved web page for executives and CEOs.
Seamless Excel integration.
Always use the latest figures from Microsoft Excel documents and easily integrate figures and text from tables into Adobe InDesign files.
Version management
Meeting internal quality standards and consistency, tracking changes, saving versions as well as integrating revisions has never been easier.
Multilingual support
By using different ‘variants’ of the same document, creating documents in other languages becomes easy. Even creating customized versions for a different target audience can be done without any problems. Integration with translation systems can be set up for consistent translation.
Teams
Whether 3 or 300 people are involved, wherever they are in the world, in small businesses or multinationals, and whether they are internal colleagues or external collaborators, all users of vjoon K4 are easily managed. Based on an assigned role within K4, users are assigned tasks that they can take on as a team. Also, based on these roles, it is possible to hide documents or sections.
Secure Access
Creatives can access all files at any time of day, from any location, from the internal network or via VPN.
Conclusion
vjoon K4 is a robust solution ideally suited for managing one or more teams, and it features several powerful tools for this purpose. A centralized system, equipped with the latest data, ensures that teams can collaborate seamlessly wherever they are in the world. It not only increases efficiency in the production of annual reports. It also makes a significant contribution in preventing the use of inaccurate information. It is therefore not without reason that companies such as Siemens and BASF choose vjoon’s solutions.
