Selecting the top winner in the Document Management category proved to be more of a challenge to our judges, as the two favorite products provided very different functions. But when looking at the number of enhancements added to each, Business Computer Design International Inc.'s Catapult came out on top.

BCD added several features to Catapult, Version 5.6 that transform it from being a simple report distribution tool to a strategic report and document solution. Judges took particular note of the autonomic and security features that were added.

Catapult's GrabRules feature can be defined to automatically populate the Enterprise Content Manager (ECM) within BCD's Nexus Web portal. That includes extracting search terms from within the document. Catapult can then designate the security for each document it distributes to the ECM. Users can then access documents via any Web browser with Nexus Web Portal.

Other features added in this version of Catapult include the following:

• File chopping: This breaks large files into more manageable and faster performing blocks.
• Call-out program replacement values: Catapult supports the ability to call a user-written program that will return replacement values for use in Catapult.
• Data extraction replacement values: Catapult can extract data values directly from your reports.
• CSS style sheets: The HTML generator in Capault Poller is new and now supports the ability to include a link to an external style sheet within the generated HTML document.
• Group e-mailing: Catapult now generates separate e-mail messages for any e-mail request that contains multiple addresses in the field. Rather than send one e-mail to a large list, Catapult can send separate e-mail messages to each recipient to help keep e-mail addresses private.

The judges also raved about Catapult's ease of integration into established environments. Catapult does not require numerous modules to add on; all the functionality you need is in the one product. On top of that, it's easy to use. Authorized users or administrators define the rules they want for a report, and the product runs. The rules need to be established only once for a report.

"It's a complete all-in-one product," one judge said. "It is packed with features that allows for a wide range of document management tasks."

Search400.com editors