Sue, this may/may not be an issue with IMan.

IMan does do some basic operations when printing a Sage300 report, but it doesn't explicitly alter things such as the tray/etc.

My first recommendation would be to delete the [user]_p.ism file from the shared folder for the user to clear any print settings.

Okay, I'll try this.

Just so we're clear... I'm not expecting Iman to select a tray. I set up two different printers in Windows to handle the different trays. I am expecting Iman to send the order confirmation to the printer name I designated in the Iman job - in the Sage Order Conf event. It doesn't seem to be paying any attention to the printer designation in Iman.  It seems to be trying to read the printer from the crystal report, and when there is no printer in the crystal report, it's using the windows default printer. Hope that makes sense!

Like I said, I have this working successfully at another client. So I'm not sure what's different here.

Sue, understood, if you could try and report back.

Okay, I'm going to state it all in detail - I'm so stumped on this one.

Iman version: 3.0      Sage 300: 2012      Crystal reports runtime: 2011

Issue: I am using a conditional formula to tell Iman which printer to use when printing the order confirmation. It seems to be sending it to the right printer but it is overriding the default printer tray set up on the printer in Windows -- these two printers were set up specifically for the windows user Iman has permission to run as, only on the Iman virtual and with unique names not used anywhere else in their environment. 

I deleted the _p.ism file for the Sage 300 user called Iman - what a mess that caused. The defaults set by Sage 300 when it recreated the _p.ism file included duplexing. I logged into Sage 300 as the Iman user, went to OE forms, Order Confirmations and reset everything correctly on that screen. I chose no duplexing, and I set the source for the tray to Auto Select. Saved the settings as default. Closed Sage 300, even rebooted the Iman server. it still duplexed. I also tried changing the order conf screen you reach in Sage 300 by posting an order, and did the rest all over again through the reboot. No change.

I finally had to restore the original user files to get everything to "work" again. It is now back to the original issue. It prints to the right printer but doesn't use the default tray assigned in windows. 

I have another client I set up in a very similar manner. We have windows printers with different source trays chosen. I'm using an Iman job to conditionally choose which printer to use. The settings in Sage 300 for the Iman user aren't even setup up correctly with regards to the right form or printer -- but the Iman job still does what it's supposed to do. The big difference is they are on Sage 2017 and Iman v3.2 and they are using a different HP printer model.

I know you guys made some huge changes to printer stuff from v3.0 to v3.2 - could that be it? Also, there are multiple places you can set the order confirmation settings in Sage 300 as a user -- from the order entry post and from oe forms, order confs - not to mention the option to print when you ship/backorder that allows you to print the order conf, shpg conf and invoice at the same time. Which one do you thinks it's using? If it's using this at all...  Deleting the p.ism file clearly affected it, but trying to manually reset things in Sage 300 as that user didn't undo the mess. And yet the other client doesn't have ANYTHING set properly as that user in Sage 300 and it works fine.

Seriously scratching my head on this one - thoughts? Can you explain to me how this all works together? What does iman control vs Sage 300 vs Windows printer settings?

Thank you!!!

Sue, thanks.

Let us review and get back to you.

To answer you last question set of questions.

1. v3.0 vs v3.2 - The actual print logic has remained the same. We just moved the printing to a separate executable to work around the SQL Client deadlock issue we kept bumping into.
2. What does IMan set when printing - Not a lot. We obtain the default print setup, we then specify the printer name and the printer port (the minimum required to print). And whist there are a bunch of properties for controlling the paper source, duplex, orientation, we don't touch those nor do we expose them.

Thanks

Sue, we've reviewed the issue and we can replicate your problem. 

It seems that Sage takes the printer port assigned on the first time a form is printed and irrespective of the actions we take, it keeps using that tray.

This behaviour is for the current version of Sage (2018 PU2), and I assume it's been like that for a while. However, we have never tested down to the tray level (we assumed it was working, or perhaps other don't need that level of functionality).

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In testing outside of IMan we can make Sage use the correct printer tray, but this requires us to explicitly set the tray and this is something that has never been exposed by IMan (you get the printer and that's it).

What I assume to be happening is the tray setting is being picked up on the first print instance and because you are using the same physical printer (not logical) & same driver, the setting is valid and is just being carried across. I don't know how you would force this otherwise.

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So, I am not sure what the next steps are...yes we can make Sage use the specified tray, but this would mean adding that facility and consequently outside present functionality.

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I am opening a support ticket to carry on the discussion.

So, here is what I have learned based on two clients sites -- it's all about the Windows printer driver! When in doubt, use a generic driver!

So if you want to be able to have your Sage 300 forms print to specific printers and/or trays here's what you do:

1. If you want some pages to go to tray 1 and some to go to tray 2 of a printer, set up the printer twice in Windows printer setup -- logged in as the iman windows user on your iman virtual/server.
2. Give the two printers unique names - as in, completely unique to your environment: for example, Iman printer tray 1  and Iman printer tray 2.
3. Within the printer setup in Windows, set the default tray to Tray 1 and the default tray to tray 2 for the 2nd printer.
4. USE A GENERIC PRINTER DRIVER for these printers - for example, PCL 6 Driver for Universal Print.
5. Write a conditional formula in your iman job to choose the printer based on the printer name.

Sue...thanks for posting the update, much appreciated.

When we have a spare two hours we'll confirm this behaviour.