Video Transcript
Today we're covering Adept PublishWave — a complementary product to Adept that automates publishing and printing of your CAD and Office files. If you've ever had a user open a native application just to generate a PDF or a print, or waited on a workstation to free up so a batch of drawings could go out, this is the product built to remove that bottleneck. Over the next few minutes we'll cover what PublishWave is, why it matters, how the pieces fit together, and three real use cases customers run today.
PublishWave enables single- or batch-mode printing and publishing of CAD and Office files directly from Adept, running in two modes: on demand when a user requests it, or on workflow when a lifecycle event like a final approval triggers it automatically. The key detail is that PublishWave uses the native applications themselves to generate output, delivering true high-fidelity results without ever needing AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, or Office installed on the requesting user's PC. That's a meaningful cost and complexity savings at scale.
There are several important benefits worth walking through. PublishWave automates output decisions — no one has to manually pick settings file by file — and because it drives native applications like AutoCAD-based products, MicroStation, Inventor, SolidWorks, Word, and Excel, you get the highest fidelity output possible. It offloads publishing work from the user's workstation entirely, standardizes line weights, color, and scale every time, and is flexible about where output goes — a network folder, an FTP site, hardcopy, or right back into Adept. That flexibility is what makes the use cases we'll look at next possible.
Let's look at how PublishWave actually works, step by step. At its core, there are three components: the Adept Desktop Client with the PublishWave feature enabled, the Adept Server and Vault where your managed documents live, and a dedicated PublishWave Server workstation that does the actual publishing work. The desktop client talks to the Adept Server and Vault just like it always does — what's new is the PublishWave Server sitting alongside it, ready to take on publishing jobs so your users' machines don't have to.
The process starts when a publish request is created — either a user clicks publish on demand, or a workflow event fires it automatically. That request lands as a job in an input folder, which the PublishWave Server is watching. Think of the input folder as the hand-off point: the desktop client's job is done the moment the request is dropped there, and PublishWave takes it from that point forward.
Once the job request is posted to the input folder, PublishWave Server — which is continuously monitoring every input folder it's configured for — picks it up and starts processing. This is the brains and the brawn of the whole product: it starts and stops the native applications behind the scenes, controls the input and output, and applies whatever standards and configurations you've defined. None of this requires a person watching a queue — it happens automatically, the moment a job appears.
Once processing finishes, PublishWave delivers the output wherever you've told it to go. It supports generating PDF, TIF, or DXF output and depositing that file in a target location — a network folder or FTP site — or it can drive a physical printer or plotter directly for hardcopy. Many customers use that output file as the input to another process entirely: an ERP or MRP system, a SharePoint library, or simply as a shared common-format copy for people who don't have access to the native CAD tools.
A related feature is PublishToAdept. You can configure it to watch one or more PublishWave output folders, and when a finished file lands there, it gets signed into Adept automatically — based on whatever criteria you've defined, including target library and any relationships that need to be created. Just as importantly, PublishToAdept carries over all the metadata and full-text search data from the original native file, so the published version is fully findable in Adept. Some customers use this to give a wider group of users access to just the published output, without needing to understand the more complex native file relationships.
Beyond jobs that originate from the Adept desktop client, PublishWave can also watch a folder for any file dropped there by an outside process — an FTP upload, a scan, or an export from another system — and bring that file into the same publish-and-sign-in pipeline. That's what makes the use cases we're about to look at possible: files don't only have to originate inside Adept to benefit from PublishWave's automation.
Let's walk through three real use cases, starting with publishing to an external folder or system. This is the scenario where the whole point is getting an accurate, approved, easily viewed copy of a document out to people or systems that live outside of Adept.
Here's the flow: a document moves through Adept as normal between the desktop client and the Adept Server and Vault. When it reaches final approval — the gate in the middle of this diagram — PublishWave picks it up and generates the output: PDF, TIF, or a pass-through copy of the native file. That output lands in a shared folder, ready for anyone who needs it, without requiring Adept access.
PublishWave doesn't just drop the file — it can also generate a metadata sidecar file in XML or text format, containing key information about the document, which unlocks integration with other business systems. A great example an Oil and gas Services Company, who provide engineering services across oil and gas, mining, power generation, and industrial projects. PublishWave delivers their approved documents and metadata to a shared folder, and using the SharePoint API and a consistent naming convention tied to job number, they've automated placing those documents directly into the correct SharePoint location — even updating SharePoint header fields using the accompanying metadata.
Our second use case is publishing to Adept itself — using PublishWave to take files from outside your organization and bring them under Adept's management automatically. This is a common pattern for customers receiving deliverables from contractors, vendors, or remote offices.
In this scenario, PublishWave is watching one or more incoming folders, here, an FTP location for Project 1290 and another for Job 345. When a file lands in either one, Publish To Adept picks it up, applies your predefined rules and any relationships you have configured, and signs it into the Adept Server and Vault, fully searchable, alongside your other managed documents. A shared folder copy can also be produced in parallel for anyone who needs non Adept access.
Our third use case brings in Data Bridge — PublishWave's answer to getting files reliably to remote locations, even over unreliable connections. Many customers operate across widely distributed sites and have run into slow or unreliable network connections getting files where they need to go.
Data Bridge guarantees that published files are correctly and successfully delivered to remote locations, or even to a completely separate Adept Server and Vault installation. It intelligently tracks exactly what needs to be sent, verifies the integrity of the transfer, and — critically — picks up right where it left off if the connection drops, rather than starting the transfer over from scratch.
Two real examples show how customers use this today. For offshore rigs and vessels where network connections are often unstable, Data Bridge makes sure the latest approved documents still arrive complete and accurate, resuming automatically instead of restarting a transfer from zero. For organizations running two separate Adept Server environments, Data Bridge guarantees the transfer and PublishToAdept can automatically sign the file into that second server and vault — showing how PublishWave flexes to meet almost any publishing requirement, no matter where your teams or systems are located.
That wraps up our walkthrough of Adept PublishWave — what it is, how the pieces fit together, and three ways customers put it to work today: publishing to an external folder or system, publishing back into Adept, and using Data Bridge to reach remote sites reliably. If you have questions, please enter them now and we'll go through them together. And if anything comes up after today, you can find more videos, white papers, and case studies at synergissoftware.com.
