The Challenge
Jessica Kingsley Publishers (JKP) was looking to replace its existing software system, which was struggling to adapt and meet the expanding and versatile requirements of the current publishing industry. These system limitations made it increasingly difficult and time consuming to send reliable and complete ONIX feeds and metadata to various clients and their website.
The Solution
BiblioLIVE: Bibliographic and Production modules
"Dream Partners. The entire Virtusales team has been a joy to work with... They provided excellent service on the install, and have continued to provide excellent support as we use the system."
Octavia Kingsley, Director, Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Why Virtusales
Automated ONIX feeds
Powerfully and fully integrated reporting
Single, centralised database for all title information
Excellent customer support during and after installation
Software conforms to all key industry standards including BIC, BISAC, THEME and CBMC
Single system simplifies employee training
Highly recommended
High Quality ONIX Feeds and User-Friendly Reporting
JKP were looking for a new system that would ensure data was accurate and sent in a timely manner to all external partners. Their existing ONIX solution was proving too rigid in its scope and failing approval processes. Extra ONIX information was hard to add, and whilst standard information was easy to enter, it became very difficult to validate, report on or extract. Additionally, the reporting tool required specialist technical in-house knowledge to set up new reports. A new software solution was required to make reporting much more user friendly, and improve the visibility and versatility of ONIX information and feeds, as well as creating a more usable system on the whole. JKP looked at several companies including Klopotek, Ingenta, Avatar and Stison. After receiving an existing customer’s recommendation, viewing mulitple online presentations and being given several in-depth demonstrations of the system, Virtusales offered the best solutions for JKP and were chosen as their preferred vendor.
Immediate Improvements
Virtusales’ BiblioLIVE software includes fully integrated and powerful reporting, automated ONIX feeds, and a central database for all title information as standard. This meant that JKP was able to create and send live ONIX feeds to several partners immediately on install. For smaller, non-ONIX recipients, automated scheduled metadata reports proved a very useful way of quickly sharing the relevant metadata. This has resulted in daily and weekly feeds being sent automatically to partners. New and updated metadata and images now feed automatically into JKP’s website directly from BiblioLIVE. Maintaining metadata in BiblioLIVE is also much easier, through the integrated reporting and groups modules. Users are now able to report on specific fields, create and manage groups of ISBNs to update information, and can also link editions and synchronise title information to avoid errors caused by manually duplicating data. “Entering and editing metadata is a great deal easier in BiblioLIVE… going through group members to easily update the same information is great.” "We feel able to push boundaries knowing that we won't be sending bad data into the world." Octavia Kingsley, Director, Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Surprising Benefits: Group Management
One key added benefit after installing BiblioLIVE was the integrated Grouping Engine. This allows users to group together titles, editions or contacts easily. These groups can be used for a huge range of projects and tasks, from groups of authors, to groups of series and subject categorisations. Each group can be reported on, updated and managed. As Octavia explains, “The group function has been amazing. Marketing use it to run catalogue lists, it’s an easy way to clean up book data and cross reference things. It has been fun finding new ways of using it, the list seems endless.” Additionally, having the added security of working with a system that is robust and conforms to all the key industry standards including BIC, BISAC, THEMA and CBMC has meant that users at JKP have been able to explore the reports module and the system with the confidence needed to make it work for them. "I wish all suppliers and software solutions could be as effective and intelligent as BiblioLIVE." Octavia Kingsley, Director, Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Further Integrations: Impressions and Production
After going live with the key title information modules in BiblioLIVE, JKP looked to expand their existing system and bring more of its processes in line. The next stage for JKP in improving their systems was to look for a way of better costing proposals and managing print orders and reprints. “We wanted a more joined-up solution to the whole process from commissioning to print.” The new module needed to have clear, user-friendly scheduling, calculate production costs and track projects through different stages of the processes and report on these stages. Having fewer systems for employees to learn and work with was also an added benefit. The production module included scheduling, co-printing, purchase ordering and a wide range of integrated production-level reports. By fully integrating the company’s production information with BiblioLIVE, information that was always available has now become easier for all users to find. By adding scheduling information to BiblioLIVE, key dates such as delivery dates and press dates can now be sent out via reports to sales departments and reps, who were previously unable to easily access this information.
Benefits of BiblioLIVE
TIME SAVINGS AND DATA ACCURACY
Remotely accessible to all users 24/7
Reports can be sent out in a variety of formats, including: Excel, PDF, XML, CSV and HTML
Automated reports configured to send by email or transferred to an FTP site
Synchronised information across linked editions eradicates duplication of work and inconsistencies
PRODUCTION
Clear, user-friendly scheduling
Production costs calculator
Project tracking and reporting throughout publishing process