Printing label (zebra printer) with D365FO

D365FO & previous version (AX 2012) has in-built capability to print labels on zebra printer. But out-of-the-box, it only works for advanced warehouse module. This blogs discuss about use the same framework to print zebra printer labels from custom code.

Requirements

1. Physical printer connected to local machine with internet
2. Designer for the printer model to design ZPL or similar language text for the label design
3. D365FO environment where printer setup needs to be done
4. Access to azure environment (setup, subscriptions) to setup local printer on azure

The setup

First thing first, setup & connect the zebra printer & document routing between local environment and azure. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/unified-operations/dev-itpro/analytics/install-document-routing-agent

The design

Now based upon your printer model & label size, use zebra designer to design the required label & get the output zebra programing language (ZPL) text. It will looks something like this.

^XA

^FX Left section

^CFA,30

^FO50,50^FDSKU^FS

^CFA,40

^FO50,100^FD%ItemId%^FS

^BY3,2,100

^FO50,170^BC^FD%BarCode%^FS

^CFA,50

^FO50,350^FD%ItemName%^FS

^FX Right section

^CFA,40

^FO450,100^FD%Price%^FS

^CFA,20

^FO500,200^FD%PackQty%^FS

^FO500,250^FD%Location%^FS

^FO500,350^FD%Date%^FS

^XZ

The code will have placeholders like %ItemId%, which will fill on run-time with the data from AX for actual printing. You can use any format for placeholders but it should not conflict with any of the zebra tags.

The X++ code

Create a new Zebra printer layout table in AX for setup purpose. This should have at least two fields – Printer name & ZPL. Printer name will have the name of the printer installed in the system and ZPL (memo field) will have the output code from designer. You can add other fields if you have any more criteria to identify which layout should be used in your specific situation.

Create a simple form (& menu item, security artefacts etc.) to make this new table available in AX UI to enter data by user.

Create a new class which will act as a controller for printing. It can be called from the either a menu item or from other X++ code to give print. The class should have minimum two methods – getPrinterStr & sendToPrinter. First method will have the logic to get the correct layout record from the new layout table. Once layout is found, it will replace the placeholders in the string with actual from the source. This source can be a table, a view or some other business logic. For example

public str getPrinterStr(InventTable _inventTable)

{

                str retStr;

                if (_inventTable)

                                ZebraLayouts zl;

                                select firstOnly zl;

                                if (zl && zl.ZPL)

                                {

                                                retStr = zl.ZPL;

                                                retStr = strReplace(retStr, ‘%ItemId%’, _inventTable.itemId);

                                }

                }

                return retStr;

}

The second method ‘sendToPrinter’ will call the class ‘WHSDocumentRouting’ method ‘printLabelToPrinter’. This will require two arguments – actual printer name & the final printing string.

Other methods will be required to added to the class to make the flow work like main, if needs to be called from menu item.

Note: The same classes/tables are available in advanced warehouse code as well but currently it only work within the processes of the advance warehouse. You can choose to re-use those forms/tables. But it may conflict if you are using advance warehouse standard processes.