Intelligent Flatplan

Why digital flatplanning?

There are plenty of ways to flatplan a magazine or newspaper: pencil and paper, spreadsheet, InDesign file or even a word processor document. Each is valid but has its pain points including version control, security, shareability, inflexibility, permissions, human error and more. Digital flatplanning is designed to resolve all these limitations in a simple, affordable, easy to use way. Digital flatplans provide a ‘single point of truth’ throughout the production process, foster a collaborative working environment and encourage efficient teamwork.

How much does it cost?

Publishing is a competitive industry and costs are under constant scrutiny. Before moving from a ‘free’ pencil and paper to a company-wide digital flatplanning solution, publishers will rightly place cost and value under the spotlight. Knowing this, the Intelligent Flatplan’s (IF) philosophy is ‘no publisher left behind because of cost’. To achieve this, IF offers a unique usage-based pricing model calculated on the number of pages a customer publishes per year. As an example, an SME publisher producing two monthly titles, 52-pages per issue (1,248 pages per year) would pay £22.90 per month, total. So, a professional-grade, company-wide, multi-user flatplanning solution for less than a single coffee subscription.

Benefits for every department

Digital flatplanning offers benefits to every publishing department:

• Management benefits from a real-time overview of each issue as it moves through production, highlighting advertising sold, space to sell and editorial progress.
• Editorial benefits from a clear view of editorial page allocation, sections and the workflow status of each editorial project.
• Sales benefits from a live image of advertising and advertorial space available to sell, space already sold and the workflow status of each order.
• Studio benefits from a real-time notification system alerting them to when pages have reached layout, proofing and sign-off stages.
• Production benefits from the flexibility to easily and quickly update a flatplan with changes automatically shared with users in real-time.
• IT benefits from knowing that as a software-as-a-service solution, IF is compatible across Mac and PC, with maintenance managed by the datacentre.

For magazine and newspaper publishers interested in trialling digital flatplanning technology, the Intelligent Flatplan’s professional features and benefits speak volumes:

• Secure, high-performance UK-based server
• Real-time flatplan ensures users see changes immediately
• Unlimited titles, issues and users
• Integrated advert booking feature
• API integration into cloud advertising sales systems
• Per-page pricing guarantees affordability
• Cost effective for any size of publisher
• No contract, cancel anytime
• Free 30-day trial
• Free one-to-one onboarding process
• Telephone support
• 18-year trading history
• Future development roadmap