Documentum 6.7 and ADTS Extended Support Ending on April 30th, 2018

Extended support for the Documentum 6.7 stack, and thus Advanced Document Transformation Services (ADTS) with the Adlib backend, ends on April 30, 2018.  For those clients that have not upgraded to the 7.X environment, there is significant risk exposure.  As part of our making Documentum better series, TSG is recommending upgrading to Adlib rather than move to Documentum Content Transformation Services or Blazon. This post will document our thoughts.

Documentum ADTS – History

Many of our clients were not pleased when Documentum changed the underlying backend of ADTS (rebranded Content Transformation Services – CTS) from Adlib to a different vendor with the Documentum 7.x product stack release.  Many clients have expressed concerns with CTS as the new rendering engine has provided inconsistent results.  The quality and inconsistency is especially a concern for regulated clients where a majority of users, typically consumers, only have access to a PDF rendition of a document.  If the PDF Document does not correctly reflect the content of the document, there is a compliance concern.

For clients that have delayed the 6.7 ADTS upgrade, TSG is recommending Adlib for PDF rendering needs.  Reasons that make Adlib a better approach than Documentum CTS or OpenText Blazon include:

1. Consistent Backend –Adlib provides consistency from ADTS results achieved on 6.7 and any later version of Documentum or other ECM. With the introduction of CTS and then the purchase of Documentum by OpenText (See additional details here), there is a concern that CTS will change again to OpenText Blazon.
2. Core Service Offering – Rendering has been Adlib’s core offering for 20 years. To stay in business they must constantly enhance their offering to keep their software an industry standard.   Adlib continues to be the premier renditioning provider with additional capabilities coming out that leverage a SaaS model and the Google Cloud (See additional details here).
3. Price Point – Despite the quality advantages of Adlib, Adlib rendering software is no more expensive than the rendering solutions alternatives from Documentum and OpenText.
4. Additional Features – Adlib has additional rendering offerings that may be of value to any organization. Adlib provides the ability to temporarily “rent” additional licenses when a client will need to scale up rendering, such as during a large migration. Other offerings include using a cloud rendering solution or Adlib’s auto classification functionality to gain a deeper understanding of content or reduce workloads.
5. Simple Integration – Adlib provides an “out of the box” solution for Documentum or OpenText applications.
6. Future Roadmap – When purchasing a software, TSG will recommend clients always evaluate both the current state of the product as well as the future state. Rendering software is no different. Adlib has a much higher vested interest in continuing to improve and reinvent their rendering product in the next 3-5 years and beyond.

Please share your thoughts below. If you have questions about our experiences with Adlib, feel free to contact us at inquiry@tsgrp.com.