Druckerspooler - print conveniently and directly from your ERP

Are you sick of having to take a detour to download documents from your ERP system via PDF in order to be able to print them out? Our Druckerspooler provides a remedy!

The Trouble

Especially with cloud solutions, users have the problem that they cannot print documents directly from the system, but only in a somewhat roundabout way with the help of a file download.This also applies to our Lean ERP solution xentral. Regardless of whether you use xentral as a cloud or on premise version – the xentral instance rests mainly in the cloud. As a result, in order for your local printer to be able to print invoices, orders or labels from xentral, you need some kind of adapter that handles the communication between your printer and your xentral instance.

The Solution

There are two ways to use an ” in-between server” for xentral:

However, both options differ greatly in the range of functions. While the adapter box from xentral cannot print receipts, you can use our printer spooler to print receipts as well as to connect several printers.

The adapter box of xentral

xentral’s own adapter box is used for direct connection of the Zebra GK420 label printer and other hardware such as receipt printers or scales. The key difference between the adapter box and the Druckerspooler: the adapter box only supports the connection of a single label printer. In addition, the adapter box makes a strict distinction between stock and item labels. However, receipts cannot be printed with this solution.

The ruhr.agency Druckerspooler

Our Druckerspooler connects the online and offline world and sets standards in terms of installation and features. The Software is configured and connected to xentral on the spooler and you’re done.
With our spooler, you can print package tags and documents to an xentral ERP system hosted in the cloud or managed server! Our Druckerspooler connects the local devices in your corporate network to the remote xentral instance, allowing one-touch printing (directly from xentral) without a PDF download. Our solution is officially certified by xentral and already in use at a large number of customers.

Highlights

The Druckspooler is placed in your own network and external devices can be connected via USB ports or WLAN. A stable internet connection is mandatory for the use of our print spooler. For printers to be added to the spooler, they must have a Linux driver and be able to be added under CUPS. (Here you can check if your printer is supported) Our spooler also allows parallel operation of multiple printers.

Note: Because of the Raspberry PI ARM architecture, not all Linux-enabled drivers are automatically supported.

All receipts or even parcel stamps (DHL, DPD, etc.) can be printed directly from xentral via the spooler.
In addition, our spooler has integrated xentral adapter box functionality to allow item and warehouse labels to be printed with certain printers as well.

Druckerspooler

Technical Setup

Our spooler consists of a Raspberry Pi 4 (Raspberry is a single-board computer with a single-chip system in credit-card format, which is mainly suitable for servers, in automation and for building computer-based devices, especially mobile solutions).

An SD card is inserted in the hardware, on which the operating system (Linux) and also our software is stored.

For local printer communication a CUPS server is installed. With a Lan-cable (preferred) or WLAN the spooler can be connected to the own network.

Functionality

The software is accessed and configured via a web application

Via the xentral API device key, the Druckerspooler communicates with the xentral instance and retrieves the corresponding documents

Communication takes place from the local network to the printer, to the CUPS server, to the Druckerspooler software and finally to the xentral instance

FAQ

Thanks to the simple visual interface of our Druckerspooler, the initial setup and monitoring of the functions can be done easily without any IT knowledge.

A single spooler can be used to connect multiple printers as long as they are part of the same local network as the spooler.

Unlike the version supplied by Xentral, our spooler is capable of coordinating multiple print jobs simultaneously. Thus, there are no delays with multiple packing tables. Even for customers with over five-digit print jobs in one day, CPU utilization rarely goes above 10% thanks to the optimized software.

The printer spooler supports the most common Zebra label and parcel mark printers.

Our Druckerspooler works for Xentral Cloud instances as well as for self-hosted instances.

You can pay by bank transfer and will receive an invoice after placing your order. If there are any problems with the payment, we will be happy to help you. Just send us an email at support@ruhr.agency.

If you are dissatisfied for any reason, you can cancel your order within 14 days. Just contact us support at support@ruhr.agency.