[en] New in Label Management System

[en] NiceLabel Control Center displays a warning if the necessary system components are not running on the computer, where NiceLabel Control Center is installed. The Control Center depends on the NiceLabel Control Center Proxy Service service.

[en] The warning is shown on the Overview and Administration tabs.

[en] NiceLabel Control Center also detects the missing client prerequisites and displays a warning if JavaScript is disabled in the user’s browser.

[en] After any NiceLabel application prints a label, it saves the complete event data in the print history, which is accessible in the Control Center History tab. The event data already included details, such as label name, timestamps, user name, all name-value pairs used in the label, label preview, and other fields. You can further use the filter to drill-down for the data.

[en] With this release, vision inspection is part of the print history. When the label prints on the shop floor, the QA processes can be set in place to verify if the printed label meets the company’s layout, content, and quality guidelines. Depending on the requirements, the vision inspection system grade the quality of the printed label or assesses the quality and/or presence of other objects as well.

[en] A new field in the print history indicates whether the printed label passed or failed the visual inspection. The “vision inspection” field only appears in the user interface if a visual inspection has been done for the current event.

[en] It is the responsibility of the vision inspection system to connect to the NiceLabel’s print history database, and to update the event data with vision inspection status (e.g. True/False).

[en] With this release, you can preview graphic and PDF files directly in the NiceLabel Control Center.

[en] Double-clicking no longer downloads the file but opens a preview in another browser tab. Right-clicking the file and selecting Preview does the same.

[en] The preview supports the following file types: BMP, PNG, JPEG, GIF, TIF, WMF, EMF, and PDF.

[en] NOTE: Your browser must also support the selected image type. For example, WMF will open in Microsoft Internet Explorer, but not in Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge.

[en] With this release, you can duplicate the existing workflow process, and customize the copied workflow.

[en] This feature saves a lot of time if you have to create a complex workflow process, but the majority of the process is already configured with the existing workflow.

[en] Custom fonts are the fonts that are not installed with Windows but have been added to the system at a later time. NiceLabel Designer can use these fonts in the label templates and display the labels correctly because the fonts are installed on the same computer.

[en] Typically, you would not have these fonts available on a computer with the installed on-premise Control Center. If you use Label Cloud, there is even no “server computer” you can connect to.

[en] With this release, you can store the custom fonts in document storage, and make them available for label previews. The dedicated font storing location in your document storage is /System/Fonts.

[en] When using lifecycle management in NiceLabel software, you can configure the system to send out notification messages to the next person(s) in the workflow process. The person receives an email with instructions on what to do.

[en] To notify the user about the workflow steps changes, you must configure NiceLabel to use the server for the outbound emails (SMTP server). Now, these settings are available also on the Versioning and Workflows page under Administration.

[en] The same set of settings is still available on the Alerts page. These settings are mainly used when configuring alerts based on the collected feedback from printing stations and printers.

[en] When you promote the file to the next step in the workflow process, NiceLabel sends the email notification to the next person in the line of command. NiceLabel no longer sends a single email per each updated file, but intelligently sends just one mail to each recipient.

[en] This reduces the amount of emails a person might receive. The optimization is noticeable when updating the workflow step for multiple files simultaneously. Each email notification contains links to all relevant files.

[en] To increase the visibility of print processes, NiceLabel collects more information about the print events and stores more data into the history logs. You can locate the necessary information in the History tab easier and with more search control. The newly collected data is also used in the Analytics tab.

[en] The following additional data is saved in the history log:

[en] Users that have assigned many web applications must select the required Web application in a list that displays each time the Web client runs.

[en] The new parameters allow injecting the name of the target Web application in the URI at the integration point. The Web client opens the specified Web application without any prompt for the operator. This is a useful shortcut when integrating Web Printing into an existing web-based business system, for which you know exactly which Web application must run.

[en] For example, the web-based business system executes the following URL:

[en] nicelabelwebclient:?server=https://demo.onnicelabel.com/print&application=UDI&openMode=2&variable=GTIN=00311234567901&variable=ProductName=Retracting%20Needle

[en] to do the following:

[en] Until now, the Web Client could only connect to the database sources that were accessible from the server (the computer, which runs NiceLabel Web Printing). The Web Client sends all requests for database data to the Web Printing server, which made the database connection, retrieved the data, and provided response. Web Printing server acted as a proxy between the Web Client and the database.

[en] With this release, the Web Client can use local database sources. These are the databases from the environment, in which the Web client runs. These might be local MS Excel or MS Access files, MSSQL databases, or any other database sources for which you have:

[en] When creating printing solutions for the user in NiceLabel Designer, you must add the “LOCAL_” prefix at the beginning of the database connection name. This tells the Web Client to connect to the database source locally, bypassing the Web Printing server.

[en] Web Applications are frequently used to extend the standardized labeling to suppliers, contract manufacturers, or 3PLs. You can give them access to labeling while maintaining centralized control over the design of label templates. The partners can use your labels with the data coming from their local business system.

[en] Using the Web Client you can either run one or multiple Web Applications. If you have multiple assigned applications, you have to select the correct one after you start your Web Client.

[en] You can now quickly switch to other Web Applications. Your user name in the Web Client caption expands a menu, using which you select the Start other web application option.

[en] NiceLabel software supports OEM customization of the visuals that the user can see. The available visuals are splash screen, partner logotypes, and contact information displayed in Designer and in the print application. You can also include the call to action to direct the users to partner’s web pages using the Buy supplies button.

[en] The same kind of vendor customization is now available with NiceLabel Web Client. The default print form displays partner logotype and contact information out-of-the-box.

[en] Typically, you store your label templates inside your document storage and manage their lifecycle using the workflow processes. However, you can also save other file types inside the document storage. Some users prefer keeping their Excel or Access files close to the label templates.

[en] We have optimized the usage of file-based databases if they are accessed from document storage. With this release, you can experience faster access to the data coming from Excel or Access files, and more responsive printing applications.

[en] If you select more than twenty users or groups for a single Web Application, the notification displays whether you are sure to add that many users at the same time.

[en] This sanity check prevents sending unintentional invites to too many users.

[en] After you publish Web Applications, you must configure users that can run them. With this release, you can also add Windows groups to the list of authorized users. All members of the selected Windows group can run these Web Applications.

[en] Web printing server can now access 32-bit databases even if the website runs as 64-bit. You no longer have to reconfigure the application pool EPMWebPrintingAppPool for 32-bit applications. The 32-bit databases are accessed via Web Printing proxy service. You can use 32-bit or 64-bit database providers from your Web client.

[en] You can configure NiceLabel Automation to ignore certain printers. When the user prints a label to a printer on a “disabled list”, the print action is canceled. You can prevent using specific printers by their names or by specific ports.

[en] NiceLabel Automation predefines some combinations of names and ports, such as “Microsoft XPS Document Writer”, “Microsoft Print to PDF”, or port name “FILE:”. These printers and ports cannot be used in Automation as they prompt the user for the location of the created files. NiceLabel Automation is a service application and is running in the background. As such, it cannot interact with the desktop to prompt the user for such data.

[en] To print labels to PDF files, use the action Redirect Printing to PDF.

[en] To print labels to files, use the action Redirect Printing to File.

[en] The list of disabled printers and ports is user-serviceable in the product.config configuration file.

[en] You can speed up NiceLabel Automation’s processing speed by pre-loading the files needed for label printing to the local drive. After you enable the caching option, all network files are cached the first time they are accessed. The background synchronization process makes sure the local copy is always synchronized with the network original.

[en] However, this can result in longer first time access, as the file must be copied before it can be used. With this release, NiceLabel Automation introduces the new “precache synchronization” from the document storage.

[en] You can configure the document storage folders that must all be available locally. All content from the selected folders is copied locally as soon as you confirm the selection. The folders are also added to the background synchronization task, so the local copy is updated with every change in the originals.

[en] You can configure NiceLabel Automation to log messages coming in from trigger execution in various depths. You can choose between the following levels “Error”, “Warning”, and “Information”. However, when selecting “Error” and/or “Warning”, the Manager would only report the failed action and not all the actions in front of the failed one. When troubleshooting a failed trigger, you should see the complete trigger context, not just the failed action.

[en] From this release on, NiceLabel Automation internally logs all messages from the trigger execution. You can see the details for all successfully executed actions in a trigger leading to the failed action.

[en] On busy systems serving printers 24/7, keeping that amount of logging details might have a performance effect on Automation. The housekeeping process to keep the log database in shape has been optimized to clean the excess data when it becomes obsolete.