Overview of the Clever Essentials Apps: Clever PrintNode Integration

This article is part of the Overview of the Clever Essentials Apps and of the larger Overview of the Clever Dynamics Apps series, where I am taking an initial look at the extensions created by Clever Dynamics for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Clever PrintNode Integration is a cloud printing app for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central that connects Business Central to physical printers via the PrintNode service, enabling documents and labels to be sent directly from the cloud Business Central environment to office, warehouse and label printers without requiring a local print server. In a cloud Business Central environment, standard printing requires users to download a document and print it from their local machine; Clever PrintNode Integration eliminates this step by maintaining a live connection to registered printers, allowing print jobs to be dispatched programmatically from within Business Central and arriving at the printer automatically. It is part of the Clever Essentials suite and is used by Clever Shipping Agent Integration, Clever Labelling and Clever WMS Devices for automated label and document printing.

Setup involves connecting Business Central to a PrintNode account using an API key, then registering the printers available through that account. PrintNode acts as the intermediary service; a small PrintNode client application runs on the same network as the physical printers, and Business Central communicates with the PrintNode cloud service to dispatch print jobs, which are then forwarded by the client to the correct printer. Printer selections in Business Central allow users or roles to be assigned default printers for different document types, so that an invoice always goes to the office printer and a warehouse label always goes to the label printer at the relevant packing station, without the user needing to select a printer each time. The Clever Printer Selection framework used by Clever PrintNode Integration is shared across the Clever Dynamics app suite, meaning that printer assignments made here are respected by Clever Labelling, Clever Shipping Agent Integration and Clever WMS Devices when they generate print output.

An assisted setup wizard guides the initial PrintNode configuration. Weighing scale integration is also supported through PrintNode, allowing scales connected to the PrintNode client machine to return weight readings directly into Business Central, used in Clever MES for weigh scale output recording and in Clever Packing for package weighing. Partner and end-user API key models are both supported, giving flexibility in how the PrintNode account and billing is structured. A scales test mode is available for validating the weighing scale connection before it is used in production.

Clever PrintNode Integration is a practical necessity for any cloud Business Central environment where automatic printing to physical printers is required, particularly in warehouses where label printers, receipt printers and document printers need to be driven from Business Central without manual download steps. It is the printing foundation that enables Clever Labelling to print labels automatically on trigger, Clever Shipping Agent Integration to print carrier labels at the point of consignment booking, and Clever WMS Devices to print labels from handheld devices. Businesses not using other Clever Dynamics apps will also find it useful as a standalone solution for any printing scenario in Business Central that currently requires manual user intervention to get a document to a physical printer.

Full documentation is at docs.cleverdynamics.com.