Job folder structure and archiving

The problem

• Many production companies in graphic arts receive native page layout and illustration files from applications such as Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, or even MS Word
• Often these native-application files need to be converted to PDF for print production, distribution or other processes

The solution

With this solution, Switch packages incoming customer files, creates a copy and places them in a default folder structure for production, and lastly checks for old jobs and sends them to an archive volume:

• Jobs enter the flow through a submit point and are duplicated. One copy is zipped as original files and one used for production.
• Using a Set Hierarchy element, both the zipped originals and the production files are placed in a default folder structure. For example: Year>Month>Job number>Original files and Year>Month>Job number>Production files.
• An Inject job element is used in-line to copy a default set of empty folders to the Production files directory. For example, it could contain folders for fonts, images, print-ready PDF, etc.
• The bottom path of the flow uses an Inject job element to weekly send a dummy job which triggers a command-line to move all files older than 90 days into the flow. Those files are then routed to an archive volume using a standardized folder structure.

The benefits

• Prepress teams spend less time looking for files
• Job uniformity makes troubleshooting simpler 
• Worry-free archiving of post-production jobs