There are three types of companies in the ProductionCenter environment. The Printer Company is the owner of the environment which can be set up to serve his own company and his customers or to accommodate multiple Print Centers and their respective customers. Print Centers can be other printing companies, brokers, or other service providers.

The customers of the Printer Company and, where applicable, Print Centers are referred to as Print Buyers in this documentation. Print Buyer is the third company type.

ProductionCenter allows the Printer Company’s administrator to manage multiple affiliated printing companies, brokers, and service providers (Print Centers) in a single environment. Each Print Center in effect operates like an independent Printer Company with its own customers and users.

The top-level Printer Company has its administrator and CSRs (Staff) and its own customers (Print Buyers) with their designated users. Each Print Center can have its own Staff and its own Print Buyer companies and users. The Printer Company can create and edit the Print Centers, all Staff, and all Print Buyer companies. Preferences (wallpaper, e-mails, messaging defaults, etc.) for a Print Center can be set by both the Print Center administrator and the top-level Printer Company.

If you select the Apogee System in the Hardware pane, you will see the Accounts icon in the Resources pane. This resource provides an overview of the Print Centers, Print Buyer companies and users’ accounts which are specified in the ProductionCenter.

The top-level Printer Company can see all the Print Centers and their customers.

Each Print Center can only see its own Print Center, Staff, and customers.

Print Buyers can only see the Print Center they are working with. In other words, a customer of a printing company or broker cannot see the top-level company.