Products
Order Forms are also known as Products in Odyssey. There are three types of order forms: Public, Private, and Guided.
Public order forms - an order form available on your website that is not assigned to a specific user and requires no login to access.
Example of Public order forms in Odyssey 2
Private order forms - an order form assigned to a specific company, branch, or contact. Private order forms are only accessible by logging into the print buyers account.
Example of Private order forms in Odyssey 2
Guided order forms - an order form in which a printshop employee will pre-enter the information so the print buyer doesn't have to see or answer those questions. Only a printshop employee has access to these types of order forms. They help you guide a print buyer through the ordering experience and are an excellent tool in preparing and providing estimates for your clients.
Example of Guided order forms in Odyssey 2
Processes
Process Groups- these may include Cutting, Folding, Digital Printing, Conventional Printing and many more. Processes are used when putting together a Workflow.
What needs to happen?
Think of a process group as a piece of the printing puzzle. What process or function needs to happen for the product to move from start to finish?
Example of process groups
Resources
Resources are the Inputs, Outputs, and Components of a process, including physical machines, files, or ink. Inputs are what the process uses and an Output is the result. Resources are used to produce the product and can be broken down as follows:
Inks - includes process ink such as CMYK as well as PMS or spot color inks.
Example of Ink resources
Media - the stock or substrate that is used for the jobs printed at your printshop. This can include envelopes, substrates for banners or posters, or paper.
Example of Media resources
Component - the different forms a job take (paper or otherwise) as it moves through a workflow. This may include things such as unprinted press sheets, printed press sheets, trimmed press sheets, and more.
Keep In Mind...
Think of a component as "What step in the process is the product at?" Is it a production-ready file, unprinted, printed or trimmed? For now, keep in mind that a Component resource will typically be a created from an output from the previous process that is used as an input in the next process.
Example of Component resources
Device - a physical machine that typically has an on/off switch and is used to alter the product as it runs through the printing process. Some examples include: printers, cutters, folders, die cutters, etc.
Example of Device resources
Attribute: An attribute is a quality or characteristic of anything that can be set to a different value (or that’s changeable). For example, color is an attribute of your hair. Intelligent, funny, or charming might be attributes of your spouse. An example of an attribute in Odyssey might be the dimensions of your paper stock, ink colors, etc, because they are all changeable characteristics of the resources you create in Odyssey.
Example of Attributes for a Media resource
In summary - Resources are the physical machines/files/ink used to produce the product.
Example of resource groups
Workflows
Workflows allow you to visualize the path a job takes from beginning to end and include all processes and resources to complete the job. Workflows are applied to jobs after they include all required processes.
Sample Brochure Workflow
Conditional Workflows
Conditional Workflows allow Odyssey to automatically determine if a job will need to utilize a different process when certain conditions are present.
An example: Conditional Workflow
Let’s say your print shop receives a job that could be run on either a digital or offset press. To determine which press to run the job on, you can create a conditional workflow based on quantity.
If the quantity needed is less that 2,000, you can set up a conditional workflow within Odyssey to automatically go the route of a Digital press. If the quantity is over 10,000, the conditional workflow you created will follow the path of printing on an Offset press.
Adding conditions to satisfy the above example is what comprises a Conditional Workflow.
Example of a Conditional Workflow
Inputs & Outputs
Input
Inputs involve the resource(s) needed before the job can finish a process. For example,the cutting process 'Trim Press Sheet to Finished Size' may require the following inputs: a component (Printed Press Sheet) and a device (Cutter).
Output
An Output is the resource(s) after the job has moved through a process. For example, the cutting process 'Trim Press Sheet' may have just a component (Trimmed Press Sheet) for an output.
Example of Inputs and Outputs for the cutting process 'Trim Press Sheet to Finished Size'
You’ll see the defined Inputs and Outputs for a process when opening up a process in a
workflow:
Example of the Inputs and Output for the 'Trim Press Sheet to Finished Size' process in a Workflow
Node
A Node acts as a decision point, telling Odyssey that a job can proceed to one of a variety of processes available. With a node present, a process is linked to additional processes in which Odyssey will know which process the job will require to finish out the job.
Four nodes are present in this Envelopes Workflow