As part of the sales cycle, it is standard to provide a quote on the anticipated cost of printing for a print buyer, before the buyer commits to a print service.
By using data and algorithms from PRINERGY Portal Ink Analytics software, it is possible to make ink cost predictions which take into account a specific Print Condition (paper, ink, press, screening) and type of job being quoted on.
You can use Nominal Jobs under Per Page Estimation to estimate ink requirements before any input files have been received or job layouts created, so using Nominal Jobs is useful for quick up-front estimations for quotation purposes.
Nominal Jobs allow you to create virtual layouts using idealized pages/layouts for use in job quotations, rather than using actual job files. For instance, you could create nominal jobs that represent Low, Medium or High ink coverages.
How To Use Per Page: Nominal Jobs for estimation
The first requirement is to create a Nominal Job for selection.
Nominal Jobs are created by an Administrator in the Resources > Nominal Jobs section of PRINERGY Portal.
Select Add to create a new Nominal Job and enter a Name.
It's a good idea to include descriptive information such as Corporate Brochure – Heavy Coverage, Grocery Flyer or Photo Book 10x12 when naming nominal jobs, so as to be able to easily identify anticipated content when selecting Nominal Jobs for estimation.
Enter a Page (Artwork) Size Height and Width.
Enter Ink Coverage amounts. You can manually enter representative coverage amounts for each Color, or you can use coverage amounts that have already been calculated for a previous Prinergy job. To use amounts from an actual job, select Import Data from Existing Job and enter a Prinergy Server and Date Range to filter the list of jobs and select the desired job. The coverage amounts for each color from the selected job will be populated as the coverage amounts for the Nominal Job.
When you finished defining the Nominal Job, click Save. The new Nominal Job type will show up in the Ink Estimation – Per Page dialog as a Job under the PRINERGY Server menu Nominal Jobs list.
The only difference from using an existing Job for estimations is that you select Nominal Jobs from the PRINERGY Server list instead of a Prinergy Server, and choose from the list of Nominal Jobs that get populated.
The rest of the job estimation process is the same as Per-Page Estimation, including choosing the target Print Condition, entering the Number of Copies, entering the amount of Make-ready Waste, and Press Due Date.
Press Estimate to create a Loose Page Ink Usage report. You can press Re-estimate to return to the ink estimation set-up panel, or you can press Approve to save the estimation and have it populate in the Ink Usage (Loose Page) dashboard.
You can filter Nominal Job estimates in the dashboard by selecting only Nominal Jobs under Division.