Quadient Inspire Reviews

I am a solution architect and have played around with several CCM platforms. Among those, Quadient has ticked all the boxes. It offers ease of use, good flexibility, great output generation speed, and offers omnichannel/multi-channel output from one template. 

I have helped several clients around the APAC region to boost the CCM platform and expand their offering to the market with new emerging output channels.

The solution is easy to use.

The speed of output generation is great.

There's good flexibility in terms of integrating with other ecosystems.

Inspire Designer is very flexible. The data ingestion, transformation with business rules, and setting up of complex data-driven logic in the layout of the objects are all happening in one application. This saves development time as everything is happening in one place. 

The other CCM platforms have minimal data transformation options, and they rely on other software to provide cleaned and massage data, which can be added to the output.

Based on current market trends, Quadient has ticked all the boxes.

For the next release, I would like to see more features in the Evolve Cloud offering. The Evolve Platform will be a game changer for Quadient as it will attract more enterprise customers who want to move their CCM platform to the cloud. The other CCM platform has its offering in the cloud, but it has some limited use cases.

I've used the solution for more than a decade.

If the platform is deployed correctly, it will conquer all the complexity of the CCM platform and help organizations deliver a better customer experience while getting ROI.

The product is great. The Quadient Flex platform can be scaled to meet any requirement of an organization.

We did use another solution and switched due to the flexibility, ease of use, and speed.

The initial setup is straightforward.

We also looked at PReS, OpenText Extreme, and DOC1.

In our company, we basically use Quadient for digital customer communication. It helps us to be able to provide the best customer experience to all the respective customers. In the market, all the industries (health insurance, banking, utilities, telecommunication etc.) are using Quadient products. We are using different Quadient products such as Inspire Designer, Inspire Interactive, Inspire Scaler, Inspire Automation, and Inspire Content Manager for document composition.

For the last 4.5+ years, I have been working on Quadient products. I noticed that Quadient products are easy to operate and easy to understand. By using Quadient products we are able to retain our loyal customers. It gives us the freedom to use different Quadient products such as Inspire Designer, Inspire Interactive, Inspire Scaler, Inspire Automation, and Inspire Content Manager for document composition as per the customer's needs. This is one of the greatest tools in the market. By using this we can develop any type of document.

By using Quadient products we can design digital documents. It supports various types of input files and can generate different types of output files. Quadient is a complete solution package where we can handle data transformation too, including filtration, sortation, manipulation, scripting, etc. We can work with different types of databases too. We can create a number of versions for workflow and can use them anytime when required. We can export different types of native files such as PDF, .RTF, .DOCX, etc.

They could add more functionality in near future in Inspire Interactive. For example, direct access of system variables. They could add border style for cells and could add a feature that would allow the height of cells to be increased. 

They could add features for adding text styles and paragraph styles inside snippets. 

We'd like to be able to see page breaks when we proof the blocks. 

They could add an automated feature where we could able to remove soft spaces and enters. 

They could add features where we could be able to rename the names of all the objects. 

I've used the solution for 4.5+ years.

Quadient products are very stable too. Quadient is a complete solution package by which we can achieve everything in the customer communication domain.

Quadient products are very scalable and continually scaling towards success.

Technical support is excellent.

Positive

We did not use a different solution before.

The initial setup was easy.

The vendor was excellent.

We have been profitable. The ROI is good.

I am not aware about the cost of licencing.

Yes, we looked at other options. We were looking for software that was flexible and easy to operate.

So far Quadient products are doing pretty well.

We are using Inspire Designer, Inspire Content Manager (ICM), and Scaler to produce both on-demand previews and production print files. We are using the same set of templates stored in ICM that we also use for production. This streamlines the number of templates we are producing and ensures that when a customer sees a web preview it will be the same when printed. 

The versioning in ICM also helps when we are asked to go back to a previous version of a template. Scaler has given us the ability to build workflows that can be used repeatedly. 

In the past, we used other VDPs and we moved to Inspire Designer due to its ease of use, flexibility, and processing speed. 

It has allowed us to produce jobs faster and jobs that are more accurate. Jobs that would take hours to produce in other software are now down to minutes. 

Scaler has given out development team the ability to more easily interact with the production templates that the VDP team creates. This has reduced the amount of time it takes to get jobs into production and has also reduced the amount of rework.

The most valuable feature we have found is the speed to produce files and the number of files that can be sent at one time. Using other software, we would have to send one or two files at a time. Using Scaler, we can send all of the files at once and through a load balancer send them across multiple servers in one go. 

As stated above, we also have the flexibility to use the same templates for both web previews and print production files located inside of ICM. In our current environment, we have thousands of web previews a day. 

Imposition would be the area that we would like to see improved. It is very powerful, yet also cumbersome to use compared with other software. It would be great to have an easy interface to handle the 80% of simple impositions and still have the complexity needed for the other 20%. Another option would be to have the ability to save out an imposition file not as an additional template, but as an imposition file that could be called into the template. 

We would also like to see the default color space be CMYK. It is currently RGB.

Our company has been using Quadient Inspire for three years.

I am an independent consultant, serving companies in the region with Quadient Inspire. I have performed many migrations of document workflows for banks, insurance companies, Telcos, and PSPs.

The biggest benefit for all companies switching their document systems to Quadient Inspire is the centralization of their document resources and templates. This drastically reduces the number of templates/workflows, as well as their maintenance costs. Often this means reducing the number of templates from hundreds to tens.

The most valuable features of this solution are that it is truly multi-channel and completely modular.

Without programming skills, you can start creating your data-transforming operations, layout design, and page operations such as splitting, merging, and combining the output in any desired way. Plus, its easy-to-learn scripting possibilities give unlimited possibilities for any task. There is one workflow for all corporate outputs - print, mail, SMS, HTML.

Quadient has always been a leader in innovation, and the existing functionality that has been around for at least two years cannot really be improved further. 

What can be improved are the new additions to the solution.

I have been using this solution for seventeen years.

In terms of stability, this product has never let me down in fourteen years. The Designer can "crash" here and there (maybe once a year), but only in cases where I really exaggerated (for instance, data mining a several-gigabyte file). Even if this happens, all of the progress is saved and I never lost any of my work.

The scalability is awesome! You can add anything at any time. New engines for more volume. You can add any output engine you can possibly think of to "standard" PDF output (from PS, AFP, DocX, Image, etc.).

The technical support is fantastic.

Positive

Our solution prior to this was used a long, long time ago (around 2003, I think). We used a different document composition software in the Telco that I was working for. That software couldn't satisfy our requests for splitting PDFs.

When I first saw the Quadient solution (at the time it was called GMC PrintNetT 4.5), I was amazed by its performance. With the click of a button, it could generate millions of PDF files, ready to be archived. 

I don't personally do installations. This is done by company IT with the help of Quadient. I only use it once it is installed. I would say you need a competent integrator to properly set up all of the possible parts. 

The return on investment really depends on your company's output. I have personally led projects where we cut postage costs by 40%. Any postage costs are HUGE in big companies. I have seen cases where after the implementation of Quadient, the decrease in maintenance costs (personnel) was more than 50%.

This is just the beginning. New possibilities with dynamic output content and integration with your mobile platforms offer countless opportunities. All in all, the ROI in the projects for which I was involved was usually one to three years.

I am used to people being surprised when they first hear the price but, I can tell from my personal experience that if you know how to use the software, the return on investment comes in a really short time.

I have been involved in implementations where it was sooner than one year! It is simple for large-scale document creators, you can use its features to cut down on postage, delivery, and maintenance costs, and you will never look back. 

It was a long time ago, and we were deciding between GMC and Exstream. At the time GMC (now Quadient) was just a better solution for us, with a cheaper price tag.

The thing I like most about this solution is that there is a very valuable and connected community of real users, connected in Quadient University. You can post any question there and get answers, opinions, demo cases, and even working solutions from fellow members who are doing it just because they like to help.

Also, official support is fantastic. Be aware that you need to invest a couple of days (maybe a week or two) of your time with the product (preferably guided), to truly get a feeling of how powerful this product really is.

We primarily use this product for high-speed variable printing of letters, statements, etc.

I have also used Inspire for direct mail marketing pieces. The previous company I was with was using DesignMerge with Adobe InDesign, and moving to Inspire was the best move because it opened so many doors and possibilities.

It also worked more seamlessly than DesignMerge. With the volume we were working with, DesignMerge just wasn't robust enough. It would get bogged down and process far too slowly. Inspire is fast, reliable, and pretty unlimited in what you can do.

Inspire has allowed us to do things we would not be able to do without it.

Inspire is like an iceberg, most users only use about 10% and do not realize all the amazing things it can do.

All of the built-in features are valuable because they are such a time saver.

Proofing without having to export a PDF to proof is a huge benefit.

You are able to view the data right next to the proof and cycle through the records, record by record, or you can cycle through page by page if you want. However, the record by record is great if you are viewing letters that have blank backers.

The built-in output options are a huge benefit, as you have what you need right in inspire if you need PDFs, AFPs, TNOs, etc.

The FCV feature is also a huge benefit.

The training modules are very helpful in learning features you haven't used before, or in learning how to use Inspire in a way or for something you haven't done before.

One improvement would be to make the training modules or university free for users, as not all companies will pay for their employees to do the training and get the certificates.

Also, maybe having some training modules that are more specific to different types of uses, for example, a set for marking materials and a different set for statements.

We have been using Quadient Inspire for 10+ years.

Previously, I used DesignMerge in Adobe InDesign. I switched because the company I was with was using DesignMerge internally and outsourcing the Inspire work.

I did not evaluate other options.

We are a Security Print business producing the world’s most important documentation for a wide variety of different clients who require input and output in numerous formats and volumes. This often involves spreadsheets and text file sources or captures from documents such as PDFs. From there we use Quadient to manipulate these records in any number of ways to fulfill the clients' requirements to produce numerous types of documents that contain all sorts of programmed security features. The capabilities of Quadient allow for us to create inline packing manifests and labels for despatch not only mainly in the UK but also around the world.

Previous solutions we had implemented before Quadient were tiresome in their use with painfully slow processing speeds by comparison. In one example, a task that would have taken a couple of hours previously had been reduced to just a few minutes with various output types that cater to all of our needs. It has allowed us to market for work that previously we would not have been able to produce. Arming our sales team with more options when going to market against competitors. This has been a resounding success in our organization when it comes to winning more niche contracts.

The user-friendly way that workflows in Quadient Inspire can be composed and organized goes a long way towards minimizing the time spent creating complex tasks, thus creating more available programming time/capacity for new jobs. While original scripting knowledge is preferential to using the tool effectively, the modular structure and GUI interface makes it much easier to grasp than otherwise might have been the case. It also makes it much easier to label items clearly and introduce new options later without having to fundamentally alter what has been done previously.

The de-bug/help system is quite ambiguous at times and only works if you know where to look, but I find that its search facility is perhaps not as extensive as it might be and often returns fairly random results unless the search terms used are very specific.

However, it should be pointed out that the provider does have a very good support network in place with expert users proving most helpful. Quadient University and the Quad are valuable resources where experienced users are on hand to provide prompt solutions to even complex problems; even sometimes going to the lengths of creating example workflows and scripts to carry out the required task.

I personally have been using Quadient Inspire for around seven years.

Our organisation has been using Inspire for several years now with me joining from another company that used Quadient 18 months ago. We have been enormously impressed with the consistency of performance. We occasionally come across some system crashes usually when we have a script error and the program finds itself in a continuous loop, which can be a pain if you haven’t saved your work. In terms of the system itself, I cannot recall any major issues we have suffered regarding its stability.

Within our organisation Quadient has radically improved our setup and processing efficiency and has enabled us to offer clients options and turnaround schedules that would not have been possible previously (Print, PDF, Email, Data etc.). We have completed tasks of wide-ranging scales and complexities with a highly impressive performance from Quadient Inspire, with regular high volume jobs not causing us any issues in processing.

As we have increased our usage of Inspire we decided to expand it (We recently purchased the PDF output licence), we have obviously been presented with more challenges that we have not faced before. However, the online support forums and Quadient direct support has proved invaluable many times with very helpful users not only on hand to expertly solve our problems, but occasionally even prepared to construct and supply example workflows aiding us through the initial build process.

The previous tool we used was called Pres. This was much too cumbersome to use it did not contain a GUI visual and was entirely script/code until output. This was deemed not to be efficient in helping us meet our clients' requirements promptly and effectively. Processing times also proved to be a problem, especially when we began to appreciate the power of Quadient Inspire.

Given that this was a significant change this was a smooth process. Thanks in part to the intuitive structure of the product itself, and also to the help we received from the provider, this process went much more smoothly than might have been expected. It was only when we had to move the legacy jobs from Pres to Quadient we saw a time impact but this was inevitable.

We implemented through a vendor and would recommend they were very helpful.

I don’t know the exact ROI that the organisation has with Quadient. But it is clear with the organisation willing to invest in it further even in this current economic climate that its return is far outweighing its investment.

I do not have the costing and licensing details available to me, but I have been made aware that due to the vastly improved performance and efficiency compared to previous methods, the product has vastly returned on the organisations investment.

We evaluated the upgrade to Pres alongside a program that Xerox use that’s their upgrade on VIPP I believe but both couldn’t offer what Quadient did.

The advice I have for anyone thinking of investing in Quadient Inspire, I can recommend it to anyone considering it as a solution for anyone in the Print/Mail/Comms industry it is a must. It is easy to “Stick to what you know” but believe me in this case the grass is greener.

We use Inspire Designer for Data processing and Document composition. We are currently developing our workflows to operate on an automated basis by using Command Line in batch files to call workflows and pass data in and out of the Designer to other applications.

Quadient Inspire has improved our efficiency all round in the data processing department. We have been able to take on jobs that we couldn't do before the implementation of Quadient Inspire and it has sped up the processing of data in an unbelievable fashion. We had one job which took twenty-six hours to process the data using the old system, but when we transferred the job to Inspire, we were able to process the data in forty-three seconds!

The feature we use on every job is the NS Splitter, which enables us to impose jobs two up on SRA3 paper seamlessly, allowing us to maximize print layout and costs savings.

Data Transformer modules are also useful for data manipulation. They enable us to swap in different data sets to automate the data processing as opposed to redoing everything in Excel.

I feel the scripting modules are very powerful but are difficult to use if you do not have the programming knowledge. I would like more wizards to be included in the scripting module and perhaps an online training course on Udemy would be a useful asset. 

The software is extremely stable and has never caused us issues.

This software is very scaleable and can fit in with most of our other software.

We did use an alternative but it wasn't as robust and didn't allow the manipulation of PDFs.

We implemented the software to improve processing times, win more work, and reduce costs. Overall, it has helped us achieve these goals immensely.

We sprent time looking at many options Quadient offered and made decisions about what we needed to enable us to be futureproof.

We evaluated PlanetPress as an option.

Do not expect to be able to use the software without any training as it is extremely powerful with many modules and can be slightly overwhelming if you have had no exposure to it. That being said, with a day's onsite training we were producing jobs with ease, albeit only using basic modules. Over time and with the help of the University we have gained lots of knowledge from the very helpful University Member.

I use Quadient Inspire Designer on a daily basis for complex variable document composition and data manipulation. I output primarily to IJPDS, PostScript, and PDF.

We have used Quadient Inspire since before I was brought on board, and I cannot imagine what it was like before that.

The most valuable aspect of Inspire is that it is constantly being upgraded to keep up with current market trends. This market is constantly changing, so we need to continually roll with those changes and Inspire allows us to do that.

In the (near) future I would love to be able to merge Excel XLS data with the same level of ease that we can currently merge CSV data sources (including text attributes, which are lost when using the CSV format).

This solution is one that I use when working as a consultant or developer for the software users.

We are able to provide a complex end-to-end solution to any of our customers very easily.

The most valuable features are the easy-to-use document composition tool and the automatization tools.

The product would be improved with the inclusion of support for address cleansing in all of the EU countries.

We primarily use the Inspire suite for the production of print reporting for clients. Our primary fund management system produces XMLs of client data which is then manipulated and formatted for presentation. 

Inspire was already in place when I joined the organization, so I don't know how it was changed. I can, however, see how it makes us more flexible with regards to our client output. The reports we produce are customised to a wide range of client type with the optional pages and sections numbering in their hundreds.

Strict controls around development in our primary system mean that the ability to reformat data and rapidly make changes to the reports give us the flexibility that's required to meet regulatory requirements.

I love diving into data manipulation so the data transformer is one of my favourite places to play. Raw data is only so useful. Being able to reconfigure allows us to add relevance and clarity for customers.

The power and depth of the product mean that it can be quite difficult to see everything that is going on. Quite often we end up with 10 or more nested levels of tables and flows. I'm not sure how you make this easier to see but the right solutions would have huge benefits.