Printers are an essential part of any warehouse management system. Even if you have implemented a paperless system of sales and purchase orders, labels and despatch documents still need printing. This article describes the type of printers that can be used in PVX and how they are installed and managed, including the steps to take after an upgrade of the application.
Choosing a printer
Warehouse Labels (e.g. Item Barcodes, Location Labels)
Only certain approved types of printer models can be used with PVX. As a minimum, you need a printer that is compatible with the Zebra Programming Language (ZPL) for printing item and location labels, sales orders and container labels. These ZPL-compatible printers can have a print resolution of 200 or 300 dots per inch (dpi).
Many ZPL printers use thermal printing methods, which can be one of two types: direct thermal or thermal transfer. Each method uses a thermal print head that applies heat to the surface being marked. Thermal transfer printing uses a heated ribbon to produce durable, long-lasting images on a wide variety of materials. No ribbon is used in direct thermal printing, which creates the image directly on the printed material. This makes direct thermal printing more efficient as no consumable parts need replacing, but this method is more sensitive to light, heat and abrasion, which reduces the lifetime of the printed material. Therefore, we recommend using thermal transfer printing for location and item labels, where the labels will be exposed to light for longer periods of time, and direct transfer printing for despatch labels, where they will not be overly exposed to direct sunlight.
Select a printer which can cope with the expected workload in your warehouse. Take care to check that the printer uses ZPL; not even all printers sold by Zebra use this language.
Despatch Documents
If you have the Despatch Documents option available on your PVX system, you can also install and use a generic printer for printing despatch and despatch package labels. We recommend a minimum print resolution of 600 dpi and minimum print speed of 20 pages per minute. This may be necessary if your carrier integration (the link between PVX and the software used by your shipping company) does not support ZPL-compatible printers. Check with your carrier to confirm what types of printer they recommend, and then create custom templates for your labels if needed.
Shipping Labels/Carrier Integration
When selecting a printer to use with the carrier integration, the rule of thumb is that the printer needs to be able to print a PDF file. All Zebra printers should be capable of doing this (although we always advise checking!). The printer should then be registered as a "Generic" type (that tells PVX that we're able to send PDFs to it). It is possible to have the same printer registered as both ZPL and Generic (if you want to send both ZPL and PDF files to the same printer)
Installing the PVX Printer Service
Peoplevox provides an installation package consisting of a printer service and a print client application to control the printer service. You need to install this package on Windows machines that have access to the printers.
The system uses the Windows print service to communicate with printers, so it will print to any printer visible to the Windows machine on which the print service is installed. That can be either a printer connected directly to the computer, or a shared printer available over a network connection. Every network setup is slightly different, but as a rule, if the printer is visible in the Windows printer settings window, it should be visible to the print service as well. Please ask your IT team for assistance in connecting and sharing printers if needed.
The printer service software is designed to run in the background. It passes printer traffic between PVX and the printer. It sends a message to PVX every 5 seconds to ask if there is a print request for the printers that it serves. When there is a print request, PVX sends a link to the document in response to the printer service message.
The print client application configures the printer service, sets up the printers and starts or stops the printer service as needed. It enables printing to fixed or mobile printers in the warehouse from the PVX web or mobile apps.
Video installation/upgrade instructions:
https://youtu.be/BKSgGwFMhxU?si=3sI9Wdp0T0oH418r
Written installation/upgrade instructions:
The PVX Printer Service can be installed by following these steps (this must be done on each computer that will send print requests in PVX):
Log into the PVX web app and go to the Print Templates tab in the Setup module.
Click on the link near the top of the templates window to download the printer service.
When the compressed file has downloaded, use Windows Explorer to extract it into an uncompressed folder.
Right-click on the setup.exe file in the folder and select "Run as administrator".
Follow instructions in the installation wizard to install the printer service and client application. You may install the printer service more than once as long as each copy manages its own group of printers.
Once the installation is complete, click Connect printer... in the Printer Service dialog. The registration screen is displayed.
-
Enter your Client ID (without spaces) and the service URL (the internet address for the system), and click Next.
Region
Subdomain
Example Client Id
Service URL
EMEA
wms
pvx1234
NA/LATAM
us
pvx1234
APAC
ap
pvx1234
QAC
qac
pvx1234
Select the printer to connect to the print service from the list of windows printers available, and click Next.
Select the type of printer you are connecting to the printer service from the available options, and click Next.
Enter a name for the printer terminal (this will be the name used for the printer in the PVX web and mobile apps) and click Finish.
When you click Finish, the new printer is shown in the printer service dialog. The cloud server status (active/unavailable) is shown by a green or red flag respectively. The printer service can be stopped and started using the stop and start buttons shown below the list of connected printers.
Testing the connected printer
Throughout the PVX web app, there are options available to print different types of information. In this example, a location barcode label will be printed to test the new printer is connected correctly.
Go to the Locations tab in the Warehouse module and select a location.
Click the Print checkbox for the label you want to print, and then click Print.
In the Select a printer dialog, select the new printer and select the required template from the drop-down list, and click OK. The location label will be printed on the selected printer.
You can monitor and control printing tasks from the Printing tab in the Setup module of the PVX web app. The Print queues window displays the status, terminal name, print request date, user, type of document and user comments for each print request currently in the system. The status icons are as follows:
- Print request pending
- Print request in progress
- Print request failed
Click View print terminals to display a dialog from which you can manage the online printers, including changing the site to which a printer is assigned and setting a default printer for your user account.
Troubleshooting
If you experience problems with printing documents, we recommend checking the following before raising a ticket:
1) Does the printer show as online in the Peoplevox web application?
Navigate to the Setup module, go to Printing and select View Print Terminals. Does the printer you are trying to print to show as online? If not then this suggests that the printer is unable to communicate with Peoplevox servers - please check the steps below.
2) Does the Print Client show connected and running status?
Within the Print Client software, check the status of the cloud server and the print service. The status should appear as green flags.
If the cloud server status shows a warning, check the internet connection and ensure that the cloud host (service URL) is correct
If the print service status shows a warning, try restarting it using the STOP and START icons.
3) Unregister the affected printer and re-register it
Right-clicking on the affected printer will provide an option to Unregister the printer.
Once unregistered, you should connect it again using the steps detailed above.
4) Remove and re-install the print client
If the above steps don't work, you may need to fully remove and re-install the Print Client application. Steps:
Navigate to Windows "Add or remove programs"
Select the Print Service application from the list
Uninstall the application
Re-install the application using the steps detailed above.
Coming Soon - New Print Client
As of release 25.08-02, we are preparing to launch a new and improved print client. The new print client app is not yet generally available. This new version looks largely similar to the legacy print client, but this version includes:
Improved security and web-based management
Automatic hands-free updater
Improved server-side logging to help us support you with printing issues
Our goal with this new app is to provide you with a print client that we can automatically push updates to, without you having to manually update or reinstall anything. That will open the door to a number of improvements in the future, including enhancements to printing speed, bug fixes, and other new functionality.
Quick-start guide for the new print client
To install the new print client, please follow these short steps (if you already have an older version of the print client installed on multiple computers, we suggest that you do this one machine at a time):
Uninstall any existing print clients on the machine
Download the new print client from the link below
Generate an API key from the new print clients tab of the web application, and copy it to your clipboard
Open the new print client, enter your account details (URL and ClientID) and provide the API key
Register your printers as normal
Detailed instructions for setting up the new print client
You may have already noticed that on the web application, a new Print clients tab is available:
This is where you can register new print clients:
Each instance of the new print client will need to be registered with the web app in order to print. This added layer of security also helps with tracing and identifying issues with individual printing stations, as each machine running a print client will be visible on this list.
To set up the new print client, tap the plus icon in the top-right of the screen, and you will be given a new secure Access token:
Copy this token, as you will need it to complete setting up your print client.
In the print client app itself, click Menu > Connect to print service. Here, enter your client ID, a service URL, and that token that you just copied:
Your service URL will depend on whether you are setting up a production environment or QAC, and also on your region. Consult the table below for your URL.
Region |
Service URL |
EMEA |
|
NA/LATAM |
|
APAC |
|
QAC |
Once you hit save, the print client will connect to your account. You will see a status for each of the three components of the print client:
The Cloud server represents the web application. When the indicator is green, the print client is successfully connected to your account.
The Print service is the component of the print client is responsible for printing documents that it receives from your account. When the indicator is green, it means that it will attempt to process any documents it receives.
The Print client update service is responsible for keeping the print client up-to-date. When the indicator is green, it indicates that the print client is able to receive updates as we release new fixes and improvements. Updates are fully automated and do not require any interaction. Those updates will still follow our standard release cycle, and any changes will be communicated in the release notes ahead of time.
The process for connecting a printer remains unchanged from the previous print client.
Please regularly review the release notes for updates and more information on when you will be able to start using the new print client.
If you are interested in being an early adopter of the new print client, you can download it here.