Set up Print Node
A vital part of the shipping process is to print shipping labels and sometime way bills and customs invoices. To print from a web based system like Business Central a cloud print service is needed. In Shipping Central Print Node is used. This post shows how to set up print node and printers in Shipping Central.
You can use an existing Print Node account or sign up for one on printnode.com.
For Print Node to be able to talk to you printers a print service software must be installed on the computer that the printer is connected to, or on a computer that has the printer mapped on network. If installing on a computer in the network make sure it is one that is always on when you want to ship.
Log in to your Print Node account and press Downloads and find the version you should install and press the Download button next to it.
When the download is ready find the downloaded file in your download folder and run it to start installing the Print Node Client. Confirm the license and step throught the installation wizard and finish by press Install.
When the installation is done Print Node Client starts and asks you to log in with your Print Node account.
When signed in the Print Node Client can be found under the windows flag or in windows status bar.
In Print Node Client on tab Printers mark the printers that should be available online by checking the Active box.
Install the Print Node Client and do the settings on computers that has access to the all printers you will use from Shipping Central. By using the same Print Node account all the different printers are available to use from Business Central.
Next step is to Connect Print Node to Shipping Central, to do this a Print API key is used. Log in to your Print Node account and click API Keys. To access the API Keys you neeed to confirm with you Print Node password.
To create a new API key add ShippingCentral as API key description and press Create.
The Print API kei is now created and sjown in the list. Copy the API key that we soon will add in Business Central.
With printers connected to Print Node using Print Node Clients and an API key it is time to set up printing in Shipping Central.
On Shipping Central Setup page paste the API key you copied from Print Node to the field Print Node API key.
Open Print Node printer list found under Setup, PrintNode and Printers on Shipping Central Setup.
On the printer lista page press Printer IDs under Action and Get. This downloads all printers we have added to Print Node so they can be used in Shipping Central.
In the list with available printer you should now setup which printer should be used for shipping labels and which for other documents like waybills and customs invoices.
In a setup with only one label printer and one laser printer set it up with Content Label for the labe printer and Content Type pdf for the laser printer.
In a setup with more printers, could be on the same locations or spread out on different locations, you controll what users print to what printers. Clock on the number in the User IDs column for the printer you are assiging to a uses and add the user to the list.
Print Node and printers are now configurated and Shipping Central are ready to start printing.