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Default printers in a 2 story office

Submitted by Guest on Sat, 22/06/2013 - 06:16
in

I have just done the CSH concepts/printing page. This led to my thinking about how to solve the default printer problem for Hong Kong where the office uses two floors. RxWorks has a mechanism for overriding the standard default printer for a document for individual terminals. ie if you are using a downstairs workstation then labels print to the downstairs label printer, if you are using an upstairs workstation then they print to the upstairs label printer, and if you are in your car, then they go the null printer and get discarded.

I am wondering whether it is possible to duplicate this functionality via the practice location.  The concept is as follows:

in addition to the primary location (say Main), define a second location, Upstairs.  This is a clone on Main (ie same Shedule & Worklist Views, etc) but with location specific templates as required.

Thus we clone the Drug Label template (which is set to use the downstairs label printer) and create Drug Label (upstairs) with its printer set to the upstairs label printer.

Users who work upstairs, have their default location set to Upstairs.

 

Does anyone see any problems with the above approach?  If it will work then I will add this to the CSH page.

Regards, Tim G

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Re: Default printers in a 2 story office

Submitted by tony on Fri, 28/06/2013 - 12:48.

Hi Tim,

This will work but a number of comments:

  • Make sure have one stock location linked to both practice locations if you only want to manage one set of stock.
  • Some reports report on location so you may see invocies generated upstairs and downstairs in two different totals.
  • No need to clone drug label template unless using different template formats.  Just add two printers to same template for each location.

Cheers

Tony

Re: Default printers in a 2 story office

Submitted by tgething (not verified) on Fri, 28/06/2013 - 19:50.

Tony - thanks for this. Will update the CSH page. Note that on your last point, I do think you have to clone the template.  If you put 2 printers on the one template, then the user will have to select the printer.  If you want to bypass the selection, then you need just the single printer with its interactive flag not set.

For general printing (ie not labels) I suspect that you can have one template, two printers, and get the appropriate one selected via the default printed setting for the location.

Re: Default printers in a 2 story office

Submitted by tony on Sat, 29/06/2013 - 09:49.

Hi Tim,

Actualllly dont believe it works this way.  Depending on which location you are at it will determine which printer on the printers tab to default to.  The interactive flag just causes the print dialogue to appear and select a different printer rather than default you set.

Make sure you use the Practice Location not the Practice when setting up the printer though .. 

Cheers Tony

Re: Default printers in a 2 story office

Submitted by tgething (not verified) on Sat, 29/06/2013 - 12:08.

Tony - I totally agree that the steering via the default printer will work for 'standard' printers.  However, if we are are talking about drug label printers, then you would not want to set one of these as your default printer, and hence to steer the drug label printing to the correct printer for the location, you need to define two templates, one with the (label) printer set to that for one location, and the second with the printer set for the other location.

Regards, Tim G

Re: Default printers in a 2 story office

Submitted by tony on Tue, 02/07/2013 - 10:17.

Hi Tim,

I am not sure I understand your issue then as I deal with mutliple multiple location sites that have the same drug label printer model at these sites and deal with this successfully using a single template and multiple printer definitions on this template.  If you have different drug label stock due to different printer types then you need to use different templates and assign printers by location to these.

Cheers Tony

Re: Default printers in a 2 story office

Submitted by tgething (not verified) on Wed, 03/07/2013 - 05:43.

Tony - I suspect that at your sites, every time a label is printed, a 'choose a printer' window is displayed because the template calls out two printers.  If you want this window to be bypassed, then you need to have only one printer defined for the location in the template. Testing with the 1.7 Alpha demo system (where the server has two printers defined, ReceptionHP and OfficeBrother - both of which are in fact /dev/null) shows the following:

  1. if the template has one printer set for the location and its interactive flag is not set, then it works - no printer confirm window
  2. if the template has two printers set for the location, and both their interactive flags are set, then it works - but you have to choose a printer
  3. if the template has two printers set for the location, and either one or both do not have their interactive flags set, then you get a 'No suitable printers' error.

Conclusion: for the upstairs/downstairs situation the solution is as follows:

  • clone the location
  • modify the template to specify the correct printer for each location. If you want no print confirm screen then unset the interactive flag. However, if you do this then you must only have one printer for each location.

So for the 'no print confirm window' situation, you need two locations but only one (appropriately set up) template.

Regards, Tim G

Re: Default printers in a 2 story office

Submitted by tony on Wed, 03/07/2013 - 09:39.

Hi Tim,

Then I would suggest that is a 1.6/1.7 alpha bug that needs to be fixed.  Have tested on two 1.5.1 sites that have one template, multiple printers defined (one has 5) and all set to non interactive and works as expected.

Cheers Tony

Re: Default printers in a 2 story office

Submitted by tgething (not verified) on Wed, 03/07/2013 - 15:36.

Tony - thats sounds really queer. If the template has multiple non-interactive printers set for the one location, then how does the code know which printer to use - it is random or round-robin or what.

I think its quite logical to show an error window - though it would be nicer if the error message was a little more explicit about the problem.

Regards, Tim G

Re: Default printers in a 2 story office

Submitted by tony on Tue, 09/07/2013 - 13:28.

Hi Tim,

It selects the printer based on the current location.  If a location is selected that does not have a printer defined for that template it will show a dialogue with the locations (as set in practice location info) default printer selected by default.  

Cheers Tony

Re: Default printers in a 2 story office

Submitted by tony on Tue, 09/07/2013 - 13:39.

Hi Tim,

Just read your last post again .. not talking about multiple printers for one location but multiple location printers for the one template .. I thought that was what the discussion was about i.e setup second location so can do printer selection ?

Cheers Tony

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