Thunderhead Delivers Business User Controlled XML Transformation to its Multi-Channel Document Generation Platform

London, Tuesday 7th June

Thunderhead, the provider of highly usable, multi-channel document generation technology, today announced the release of its out-of-the-box XML Data Channel.

The XML Data Channel enables incoming XML transactions to be transformed into outgoing XML data that automatically conforms to industry-standard XML schemas or customer-specified XML schemas. The vast majority of XML transformation tools are aimed at technical IT staff. However, following industry research, Thunderhead has designed a tool specifically for business users.

"We have utilized Thunderhead's business rules definer to devolve this function to the business user," commented Martin Davey, CTO of Thunderhead. "Our research identified that time to market and cost reduction are key drivers in implementing new systems. We designed this component because business users told us they understand their industry schemas and want the tools to enable them to create and maintain these messages without requiring IT resource."

Significantly, by enabling multi-channel output Thunderhead delivers a single point of control which handles existing channels such as paper documents and faxes and allows the rapid addition of XML. This approach provides an inherent migration strategy that allows an organization to continue their current operations and incrementally add outbound XML messages at a pace which suits them, at a fraction of the effort current approaches permit. In addition, Thunderhead users can undertake conditional mapping i.e. they can specify rules which define when a data item should be mapped from the source to the target schema. Invariably other transformation tools would require the use of a scripting language to facilitate conditional mapping. Furthermore, Thunderhead consolidates business rule implementation in one place and conditional workflow triggers (the ability to route an XML message for manual edit/approval/review) can be embedded within the XML channel template.

Thunderhead has traditionally been used to generate outgoing documents. However, with the introduction of the XML Data Channel it can also be used to process inbound messages. For example, a company which sends outbound FpML messages needs to process incoming FpML messages and potentially transform them back into their own in-house schema. Thunderhead dramatically reduces the time to create and maintain those FpML messages and the manner in which they map to a specific organizations internal system, thus eliminating the need to rewrite custom "xml gateways" that are commonplace in organizations who adopt industry schemas such as FpML and LIXI.

"The XML family of languages have long held out the promise of standards-based Straight Through Processing (STP). Unfortunately in the messy real world, XML has to sit side by side with legacy document creation, exchange and ingestion systems. Thunderhead with the XML Data Channel provides us with a practical way to move forward without having to prematurely throw away the past," said Barry Thomas, Director and Technical Committee Chair, LIXI (Lending Industry XML Initiative).

"The XML Data Channel functionality allows companies to reduce the cost of implementing XML messages," said Glen Manchester, CEO of Thunderhead. "This functionality further enhances Thunderhead's document generation solution and enablesclients to leverage the benefits of XML, whilst maintaining a single enterprise document generation solution."