What is Distributed Production?
30,000-foot View
Distributed Production allows BLOX Total CMS pages to be built without a dedicated file server.
20,000-foot View
Distributed Production allows Remote users to efficiently produce pages without requiring Virtual Private Network (VPN) access to a file server that the "In Office" staff use. Because of Adobe InDesign's heavy link-checking, VPN access is a painful process for most users.
10,000-foot View
Distributed Production provides a page Check In and Check Out mechanism within the BLOX Total CMS client for Adobe InDesign. It provides disaster recovery options for pages, remote access without a file server, and facilitates further advances in Automated Production. The feature is currently available only for non-appliance-based (hosted) BLOX Total CMS sites. Included are features to assist with access to templates, output preferences, image toning, and more, while keeping the overall look and feel of BLOX Total CMS for existing users. Most page designers will only notice a new way to access or open pages, and they will see an extra dialog when closing pages. The rest of BLOX Total CMS for Adobe InDesign that is needed for Distributed Production happens invisibly behind the scenes.
Ground Level Requirements
Users need to be using non-appliance-based (hosted) BLOX Total CMS.
Users need the Creative Cloud version of Adobe InDesign.
Users need BLOX Total CMS client for Adobe InDesign version 5.64.x or newer. The most recent version is always recommended!
Remote users will need some additional items installed.
"Phase I" Limitations
The initial release version of Distributed Production has two limitations:
- Only single pages are supported. Users cannot check in a multi-page document. Thus, Distributed Production should not be used for pages that have articles that need to jump with Dynamic or Document Jumps. Copy and Paste style jumps can be accommodated as Jump Item creation is supported.
- While Advertising Placeholders are supported at all processes, pages cannot be Checked In with placed ad image files until the next-to-last process in the Pages workflow.
- Snippets need to be installed on the remote workstations.