ForNAV Direct Print in Business Central – an overview


See what ForNAV Direct Print can do for you (1 min. video)

When printing from the web client, standard Business Central presents a PDF, which can then be printed to a printer that is known to the client through a user interaction. This is not always a feasible scenario, for example, when a warehouse worker needs labels for packages and does not have time to go to the PC to press print on each PDF; or a cashier in a retail store who needs a cash receipt; or an interface with no human interaction, such as printing a package slip in the warehouse from a webshop.

Benefits of using ForNAV Direct Print:

  • Easy to install, set up and use.
  • Affordable – no additional upfront or running costs, just the ForNAV license.
  • Secure environment – printing stays within Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and Microsoft Azure; no print jobs or documents are sent to any external servers or services.

 

With ForNAV Direct Print, you can print directly to a printer without seeing the PDF first, or you can even print directly without a human interface. ForNAV Direct Print takes advantage of and extends the built-in printer selection feature in Business Central, where you can define that a user or a report should always print to a specific printer. With ForNAV Direct Print, your printers are accessible in Business Central Printer Management and Printer Selections. And, of course, it works for both ForNAV, RDLC, and Word reports in Business Central.

ForNAV Direct Print is included in all ForNAV licenses.

ForNAV Direct Print

Requirements: OnPrem from Business Central 18 and later, and Cloud. ForNAV 6.2 or later

ForNAV Direct Print works with ForNAV, RDLC, and Word reports, and the print is stored in Business Central and printed through a ForNAV Direct Print service. Our solution supports all types of devices running Business Central (Windows, tablets, smartphones, etc.). It supports printer attributes (such as Paper kind, Duplex, and Paper Source), and it also supports background print without a UI (such as NAS, API, scanners, and webshops). ForNAV Direct Print also includes tools for managing print in case of print failure or similar, and a load balancing feature.

This solution requires that the ForNAV Direct Print service is installed on a local machine (or several). You can work with all network printers that are visible to or directly connected to this local machine.

You can read more about how to get started with ForNAV Direct Print here: https://www.fornav.com/knowledge-base/fornav-direct-print-service-getting-started/

Furthermore, we offer two alternative ways of configuring ForNAV Direct Print:

  1. Client print

    Requirements: OnPrem from Business Central 16 and later, and Cloud. ForNAV 6.2 or later

    For scenarios where you have just one user who needs to print to their local printer, or a setup with many users working remotely (such as service technicians or people working from home) with their own local printer, you might not want to configure these printers as network printers.

    In this case, you have the option is to use the ForNAV client print feature, which downloads the print to the local machine – and a small program installed on the machine keeps an eye on new downloads and prints them as requested. Printing from the browser is supported and works on Windows devices only. Client print works with ForNAV, RDLC, and Word reports. No additional ForNAV tools for management or error handling are included.

    You can read more here: https://www.fornav.com/knowledge-base/installing-the-fornav-direct-print-client/

  2. Server print

    Requirements: OnPrem only. ForNAV reports require Business Central 14 or later. RDLC/Word reports require Business Central 16 or later. ForNAV 6.2 or later

    This alternative is for customers running OnPrem and only using server printers. Printing from all types of devices running Business Central and background print without UI (such as NAS, API, scanners, and webshops) is supported. This server print option works with ForNAV, RDLC, and Word reports. Only printers accessible from the server (locally connected to the server or network printers) are supported. Server print does not support printer attributes.

    You can read more here: https://www.fornav.com/knowledge-base/printing-fornav-rdlc-and-word-reports-directly-to-a-server-printer/

ForNAV Direct Print means that the print job stays within Business Central and Azure. So no document or report is sent off to an external print-to-email server (or similar) in a foreign country or anything like that.

And you have no additional variable costs on top of the ForNAV license. ForNAV Direct Print supports ForNAV, RDLC, and Word reports, and requires the ForNAV Report Pack to be installed (both OnPrem and Cloud), but you don’t need to use any ForNAV reports.

See our recorded webinar about ForNAV Direct Print: ForNAV channel on YouTube

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