London-based digital printer Rapidity has introduced a bespoke web-to-print portal that provides a completely automated workflow for its customers, enabling them to take control of all stages of their work from job submission to print, binding and dispatch.

Called Printflow, the new system offers clients customised portals to create and order marketing collateral such as business cards and brochures. It offers optional budget control and allocation tools and brand controls to ensure consistency, while allowing users to create print products via editable templates. Access to management reports is included and a variety of standard security features is available, plus a secure credit card payment facility and a range of delivery options for both local and international destinations.

Rapidity’s managing director Paul Manning said, ‘A lot of work and research has gone in to developing this new solution. We wanted to go beyond the traditional web-to-print offering and really hone in on our clients’ individual print demands and give them an entire end-to-end solution that caters for every single stage of their print projects.’

Printflow is built on a mix of off-the-shelf components and bespoke workflow. Mr Manning described it to Digital Printer as a ‘tailored service’ that is ‘technically agnostic when it comes to the W2P front end’. He expanded, ‘as an organisation we tend to prefer Infigo and would in most cases suggest that as the front end if the customer required it. We’ve worked with many different types of front ends as well as non-industry versions such as Shopify.’

There are no plans to offer the technology to other printers in the way that OneFlow, which was developed by Precision Printing and subsequently bought by HP, has been. Mr Manning explained, ‘As the service is tailored to organisations it isn’t packaged in a way that can be loaned out to others. We find that each and every business we deal with has their own acute differences and as such Printflow has been born to tailor our automated capabilities rather than be ‘off the shelf’.

The Printflow system is already in use by several of Rapidity’s clients, including Shell, Cluttons, CBRE and Able Skills.