ERPNext Bartender 2022 Integration via APIs?

[pmjd]

Hello,

Currently using Bartender 2016 for label printing and looking at a possible upgrade to Bartender 2022. I was interested to see the Automation version gave access to the Bartender API for integrating with other ERP systems like SAP and Dynamics365.

Has anyone used it with ERPNext to integrate label printing directly from ERPNext to Bartender, without having to go via the devices system dialog to print?

I have been able to setup ERPNext to print directly via code, using ZPL II printer language. It is however a bit tedious and inflexible, e.g.means you have to fix the design print resolution (i.e. 200, 300, or 600 dpi) in the code and have to print to printers of the same resolution, otherwise it changes the size of the output on different printers.

Interested to hear views and experiences from others.

Thanks,
Paul

[nay_min]

Bartender is just a bit too tedious and somehow requires software license for full features. So I created a small excel plugin in .NET using their SDK.

Users can generate a report out of material requests or stock entries, export to excel and print directly to printer by qty. No direct integration though. The plugin has a form to change some layout settings of the printout. Nothing fancy, just form fields without any previews. Been working well so far. Though it’s only 1 printer. I’m not sure how it would fare making it work against multiple printers of different models though.

How do you make ERPNext directly talk to the printer? Is it an on-premise server?

[pmjd]

Thanks @nay_min, interesting to hear but trying to get everyone away from Excel lol.

It is an on-premises server, see below for how it works. Basically use a client script to send the data directly via http request. It’s very basic (no feedback) but very useful for our needs.

[Tutorial] Printing DIRECTLY to Zebra Label Printer from Any Local Device

Just thought I’d share this incase it helps anyone else. This code will allow you to print directly to a networked Zebra label printer from any device connected to your network, without adding any additional software or drivers. NB this is one way printer communication, so no printer issues will be reported back to the end user. For my ERPNext setup, it is a local install, I don’t think this would apply to any cloud based installations for various reasons. For this example I’ll use the Batch…

[nay_min]

Thanks for this!

It should work with cloud deployments, since it’s just client side form script, no?

If we can somehow make the printer address configurable or even make printer detection works, we might even be able to create a general solution.

The hard part would be the layout design interface and testing with different models of printers.

[pmjd]

Don’t see any reason why it would not work to print to a local network from the cloud version.

I was going to look in to adding a Printer dropdown option but got waylaid with other things to do. I had hoped to add the network printers to the server to make them available to ERPNext, but it looks like it needs a bit of work for that to be possible.