A visionary anniversary

The tenth edition of the DocuMatrix UserConference and the 25th anniversary of DocuMatrix were not only a reason to celebrate, but also an opportunity for exciting topics and valuable insights into the world of output management. With more than 100 customers, partners and guests from seven countries, a day full of inspiring encounters and professional impulses took place at Tech Gate Vienna on October 8, 2024. For the first time, these were translated simultaneously for international guests by professional translation provider itl.

Insights into DocuMatrix

The presentations reflected the close cooperation between DocuMatrix and its partner companies.

In its presentations, DocuMatrix related events of the last 25 years, focussing of course on those that took place since the last UserConference. It had been an eventful year: from the retirement of founder Josef Gruber to the participation in the DOXNET conference in Baden-Baden and the severe flooding in Tullnerfeld. DocuMatrix was particularly affected by this natural disaster, as its headquarters and thus most of the team are located in the center of the disaster area. The unwavering solidarity of the entire workforce should be emphasized here: a team event quickly became an internal disaster relief effort.

DocuMatrix also presented product innovations. Roman Hammerschmid presented docPIPE and updates in Sort Split and automated quality assurance. Niklas Figl presented enhancements to dmServices: from new servers, sample applications and monitoring enhancements to release management.

Managing Director Gerhard Gruber also presented a new product. Under the code word “Apollo”, the DocuMatrix team is working on a general overhaul of dmDOC. In a nutshell: everything that has worked will stay. Additional requirements are being incorporated into the new application – a tried and tested system is being reimplemented. Above all, “Apollo” is unrivaled in terms of speed and user experience. It represents DocuMatrix’ customer communication management for the next 20 years.

Fascinating presentations from various industries

Guest speakers from renowned companies such as Abraxas, SwissLife, Formware, Zurich AG shared insights into successful projects and new digitalization trends.

For the first time, DocuMatrix awarded a partner company of the year. Abraxas is a Swiss company with over 1000 employees. In addition to specialist services and products, they are a full service provider who offers a broad portfolio of IT services and software solutions for public administration.

Immediately after the award ceremony, Peter Gassmann from Abraxas entertained the audience with his presentation “The infrastructure of democracy”. In his partner contribution, he presented the processes of elections and related an exciting journey of obstacles they encountered with their old software and how, in 2023, a smooth process was realized using dmDOC and docPIPE.

Thomas Anderegg gave an insightful presentation on the introduction of docTYPE at Swiss Life. Swiss Life is a Swiss pension company founded in 1857 and an international provider of pension solutions and life insurance. Like many companies, Swiss Life was faced with the challenge of finding a replacement for the CompuSet document renderer. The search was on for a compatible solution that could be integrated into the existing IT landscape. This is how Swiss Life became aware of DocuMatrix. It took less than a month and a half from the first meeting to the successful PoC. If you would like to find out more about this topic, read our blog post “Discontinuation of CompuSet – DocuMatrix & Swiss Life”.

Our German partner in output management, Formware, enriched the UserConference with a presentation on migrations, given by Thomas Pawlowski and Frank Becker. They presented topics such as why migrations make sense and the different types of migrations. The technical insights into the migration classes and the phases of document integration were particularly exciting.

In his partner presentation “The Innovation Engineers” Achim Brinkmann, Senior Relationship Manager of Syngenio AG, spoke about the collaboration between DocuMatrix and Syngenio in the finance and banking sector. He explained the challenges and the solution to digitize paper-based application routes in the financial sector, from digital onboarding to digital contract conclusion. If you want to learn more about this topic, read our blog post “Digital onboarding with Syngenio”.

Another exciting contribution was made by Frank Introp, Head Of Product at levigo, a manufacturer of software solutions for displaying and processing archive data. In his use case, he showed us how the joint process of structured data storage through to reading out the necessary data for output works. This is because the levigo Output Organizer, together with dmDOC, enables direct integration with the archive.

Alexander Brandl, Head of IT Service Creation at Zurich AG, shared his experience of output management as part of an IT transformation. Questions such as the importance of an IT transformation, where it began and where we are today were discussed. He described the path that has been taken, where it will probably lead us, and which wrong turns and detours had to be taken. After this arc of suspense, we were given an in-depth look at output management and the integration of dmServices into the new system landscape.

What a company and an airplane have in common

The keynote speech by Philip Keil was a particular highlight. The experienced pilot prevented a crash in 2009 by making calm and considered decisions. Keil impressively conveyed that managing a company is similar to piloting an airplane: In life, as in business management, you can’t just pull over to think. Rather, it is crucial to make quick, clear and calm decisions that keep the plane in the air. Avoiding error chains through teamwork is essential.

A clear view of the future

We look back on a day on which even the weather played along perfectly: The clouds cleared just in time for the highlight of the day, giving us an exceptional view from Tech Park Vienna. This year’s UserConference was also a culinary experience. Velvet Catering spoiled the participants with food and drink. The catering, which is certified with the Austrian Green Catering eco-label, impressed with delicious food, professional and attentive service staff and the in-house coffee roast Vilveta. As our Managing Director, Markus Gruber, aptly put it: “At DocuMatrix, nobody goes home hungry or thirsty!”

The tasting of the anniversary wine from young winemaker Simon Gattinger from the Wachau also contributed to this – the fine Riesling Federspiel®, Ried Burgstall was specially given a DocuMatrix label. At the end, all guests were able to take a bottle of the anniversary wine home with them.