Software: Corporate reports for print

[Jellybean]

Is anybody on here in the print business ?

 

Company I started with has a requirement to have 200 page plus books printed each year , with 10 more coming next year; I am trying to get them to go full digital and use animated interactive dashboards but due to politics , people want their hard copy to wave at the media

 

To produce a 200 pg book , it is mostly static with charts , small bits of text changing but its a task that takes them 3 months to complete data generation, analysis .. I have reduced to 2 hours but the tedious task of getting the data into PDF is a nightmare (still going to take weeks with reviewers , spelling errors ..)

 

Currently the setup is Word and Excel (with data copy and pasted) to create vector graphic charts --> forwarded onto a 3rd party vendor to design in Adobe InDesign , who sends onto the printers; I have translated the data model into a data warehouse and PowerBI, minimal time for chart creation, data analysis but open issues are

 

Requirements

 

• Version control -- multiple people working on the same doc , versions are getting thrown around in email , causing issue , nobody knows what version (i did mention just using a central file share but does not seem to be an adequate solution)
  
• Word is cumbersome to use
  

 

This is currently what they are thinking of using

https://tangelo-software.com/

 

But it is just a PDF and excel with limited function , using Excel as your DB (copy and paste data in)

 

I am trying to get them to move to Azure , data storage, data analytics , share point as reporting repository or file share , Power BI Service as presentation layer (eliminate any physical printed books)

 

Azure is not geared towards print industry like Adobe , anybody have any suggestions on software to aid with the design for print , collaboration ; with the ability to use a SQL server as a data source?

Edited September 26, 2019 by Jellybean (see edit history)