Spring 2022 AFP Consortium Meeting Recap: Continued Focus on Automation and Security
By Jack Condon
In April 2022, the AFP Consortium Spring Meeting was held virtually. Once again, our international team of AFP experts came together to improve AFP for all our customers.
The focus of the Spring meeting continued in two key areas:
Many thanks to all the participants in the Spring Meeting for their efforts to keep AFP growing and improving! Our next meeting will take place in October 2022, when the AFP Consortium will continue its work to advance and improve AFP.
The focus of the Spring meeting continued in two key areas:
- Automation – Architecture to automate the process of loading job-specific print parameters into IPDS printers was finalized. This capability is important because it allows customers to setup printer-specific settings in an automated way, relieving the burden on print operators to have to select these printer setups manually. This reduces the potential for costly printer setup errors, improves productivity, and saves time.
- Security – Work to formally add encryption support to AFP at the data object level was reviewed and approved at this meeting, with the next step to formally define the AFP Architecture that will make this possible. The intent of adding this support is to expand the existing AFP encryption currently offered for our banking customers, into a more general approach -- allowing them to encrypt and protect other objects in the AFP output stream (images, graphics, barcodes, and text). This capability is particularly important to customers in highly regulated and compliance-driven industries, such as insurance and finance.
Many thanks to all the participants in the Spring Meeting for their efforts to keep AFP growing and improving! Our next meeting will take place in October 2022, when the AFP Consortium will continue its work to advance and improve AFP.
