A solution for Automatic Printing of Documents from CRM

A solution for Automatic Printing of Documents from CRM

Currently, there is no way to automatically print documents from CRM. Zoho is not alone in this limitation and it is standard among tech companies to provide limited printing capabilities.

Yet businesses all over the world still need to print documents either ad-hoc or in a specific part of their business process, i.e courier labels, address labels etc.

We have just started deploying PrintNode in our organisation. Print Node allows users to send print jobs with standard HTTP requests to a print server.

In our case, we have an basic Windows computer set up as our print server. On the print server runs a client that listens for the print jobs. When it recieves one, it simply uses the standard Windows print system to print the document.

As an example of one of our processes, when we book a shipping consignment:
  1. Consignment data is sent to our shipping carrier
  2. Returned data updates our shipping record
  3. The 4" x 6" consignment labels are downloaded from the carrier, uploaded to workdrive, and attached to the shipment record
  4. The 4" x 6" labels are sent to one of our thermal printers
    1. Custom logic determines how many of each label are needed
  5. An address label is created with Writer's merge and store, and this is also sent off to the label printer
    1. Custom logic determines how many copies of the address label are required
  6. A packing list is generated with Writer's merge and store, and this is sent off to the office printer
This is all achieved in 1 function which is triggered by a blueprint action meaning for this particular business process, no more manual printing for regular day-to-day operations.

In another example we are working on for a print on demand system:
  1. A print job is initiated
  2. Data from the print record is collected. A bill of materials is generated for each print job and sent to the office printer
  3. A pick list for the print job is generated and sent to the office printer
  4. Bag labels are generated and sent to a specific label printer for printing small labels
  5. Outer box labels are generated with images and sent to the office printer, specifying a specific paper source and type
  6. All the high resolution print files are copied into a Print Job folder in Workdrive where we import them into the software for our wide format printer.
All of the above is done in 1 function and again, initiated with a blueprint action.

I have no affiliation with Print Node. Simply sharing my experience so that others may benefit.

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