print-side filters and docs

[Jack Schrieber]

We've been live with Saxo print & online since about June and as a support person what I think has been the most frustrating part is the lack of any documentation regarding the filters (templates) available for bringing data into the system (newswires, for instance) and out of the system (XML feeds).

Trial and error is not only a massive waste of my time, but unbelieveably frustrating for me and the users needing something tweaked.

Saxo Support has been as helpful as possible, I think, but even they don't seem to have access to this info.

I'd like two things from them:

First .... a document showing what each template will look for, and what it does with it .... does it convert it to something .... into what field in the database will it get stuffed ... etc. Just this would be a HUGE help in communicating with one of our own developers working to supply us with what we need, as well as other vendors who are attempting to send us clean content. How on earth can I possibly tell them what to send when I have no idea what the system is looking for?

Second .... a tool to make a copy of an existing template and tweak it to my needs.

Am I alone on this? .... Are we actually doing things that much differently than anyone else? .... or have others experienced the same frustrations and asked for something similar from Saxo? .... and if you HAVE brought something similar up with them, what's their response been to you?

Jack
Omaha

[Jack Schrieber]

In Admin/Agencies it's called "Selected template" .... there's quite a few of them and there's no documentation that I've seen that describes what each is looking for or what it does with them. For instance, "SAXOTEXT_EXP" ... "Not known to be used." ... "Finds the following: Name/TextFormat/Head/etc"

Big whoop! Absolutely meaningless. "Finds the following" .... HOW? ... What pattern is it looking for that will determine that this piece of data will become "Name" ?

And, ideally, once I do find one that's close to what I need, I'd love to be able to copy it and make my own changes so our users do less and less cleanup work and more of what they're supposed to be doing.

No ... still looking at apexchange but not using it yet.

[amanda reiter]

Hey there... sorry you have had such a frustrating time with all of this.

When you are talking about filters, are you talking about converting stories from the wire to Saxo? When you say template, I think of the template in InDesign... but I think you are referring to something else.

Are you trying to use apexchange to pull stories into Saxo?