Recommended Order Tracking Software?

April 4, 2005 7:43 PM

The company that I work for is a large format graphics printer and signage company. We have a wide array of different types of materials, signs and POP graphics that we print. What sort of job tracking system would you recommend?

Ideally, I would like it to be web-based, and as platform agnostic as possible. Something along the lines of Basecamp would be nice, especially in terms of usability (they're all mindless trolls, I swear), but I would also like to host it internally. We currently use MAS90 (overpriced crapware), but it isn't exactly suited for what we need.

Does such an animal exist?

posted by jackofsaxons to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

powerquote was the first (relevant) google hit I got, with legacy print estimate software (name of company) being second. you could also likely build something with FileMaker Pro or (if you want something more robust, but a helluva lot bigger pain in the ass) Action Request System. alternatively, if your needs are simple enough, you can hire someone to build it for you. this is coincidentially what I do. :-) MAS90 seems to handle a lot of personnel/accounting/etc. stuff so it seems a bit too big for tracking individual jobs and such.
posted by mrg at 8:47 PM on April 4, 2005

jack -- with project and workflow stuff, if you want something that's "like this but has this feature, and web based, and has a pony dispenser..." you're almost always going to end up getting someone to either develop something from scratch or going to find something that's "good, but if you tweak this and add this..."

Disclaimer: My company does the "almost like this, but if you add this and tweak it..." thing for smaller businesses. It's not the most profitable part of my business, but it's fun. It's not as expensive as you think; I know I could put something basic together for a couple thou... but it'd be basic and you'd want to grow on it as soon as you figure out which parts are working for you.

But no, there isn't anything that I know of that exists on the market right now that does what you specify... especially not for a materials & creativity based organization.
posted by SpecialK at 9:00 PM on April 4, 2005

One thing that we did in an old graphics production shop I worked in was tag every incoming job with a barcode. I dunno what software powered the whole thing -- this was about a decade ago -- but it meant that we knew exactly where everything was in the production process.

That was fun work... I kinda miss having access to all that cool stuff.
posted by ph00dz at 5:03 AM on April 5, 2005

Response by poster: Man, I could almost taste that pony dispenser... err... yes.
posted by jackofsaxons at 9:48 AM on April 5, 2005

The place I work (and admin) uses Prinergy and something called ePace that's specific to the printing industry. Accounting stuff is bundled and it's web-based. Prinergy is heavily workflow based, but you can throw to plotters, platesetters, presses. We throw some stuff to our digital presses (Indigo and Nexpress) as well. It's really good, but it's also kinda expensive, but it's also work it with the support.

I wish I knew more about ePace, but it's not bad and we're throwing thousands of jobs at it per-week. Both of these together handle our workflow and the volume of work we produce.
posted by mkelley at 6:40 PM on April 5, 2005