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Print Labels Directly From Oracle to Zebra Printers

June 7, 2016 Leave a comment

Labeling is a very important business process that usually confuses even the best of us.  It involves many moving parts; including, but not limited to, ERP systems, printer hardware, bar-code symbologies, and label templates. It’s seemingly rare in corporate IT to find a single person who knows enough about all of these technologies to create a simple labeling solution. Third party companies like Bartender and Loftware have swooped in to provide “turnkey solutions” which have their own complexities. From my point of view, these third party solutions provide little, if any, value. I’d even go as far to say that they detract value from the overall solution.

Here are a few points which a third party software vendor may bring up which will seem enticing to you:

  • With a third party solution, you can have one centralized label template repository
  • We offer a visual label template editor
  • We can direct printing based on business data

Here is what the sales people won’t tell you about third party labeling solutions:

  • License costs are extraordinary high and repeat annually
  • Each server requires a license
    • Each server in a load balancing cluster will require a license (A license per IP address)
    • Each test/development server requires a license
  • The software requires hardware/virtual machines (VMs) to run on (which also has an additional cost)
    • Multiply it for each test/development instance
  • The software provides an additional point of failure which can be difficult to troubleshoot
  • Additional desktop software is also required, and may not be very robust
    • Precise formatting can be very difficult, or impossible
    • Even basic ZPL functions are difficult or impossible to implement
  • Some key features, like linking to data from external sources, is limited in capability
  • There’s a conflict of interest between the software quality and desire to sell consulting services
  • Zebra offers a WYSIWYG visual label template editor, for a lower price

Let me be the first to tell you; third party software is not going to make your labeling solution simple. In practice, it will likely make you want to pull your hair out.

Luckily, Oracle comes ready to print labels out of the box!  Don’t let the Loftware salesperson tell you otherwise!  Here are the steps you can take to print a label directly from Oracle; no third party systems involved.

Design a ZPL Template:

^XA
^MNW^POI^PMN^LH0,0^JMA^MD25^PQ1,0,0,N^CI0^PW812^MMT^LL406^LRY^FO20,25^GB773,0,70^FS
^FT340,80^A0N,60,60^FH^FN10^FDITEM^FS
^MCY^XZ

Save the template on your Zebra printer’s flash memory
ZebraTemplateZPL[1]

Configure your device IP address.
DeviceIP[1]

Set your profile option: ‘WMS: Label Print Mode’ = ‘Synchronous – TCP/IP’
Profile[1]

Set up your label Format and fields
(make sure the name matches the storage path on the printer)
LabelFormat

 

 

Back to the third party software benefits; are any of them true?  I don’t think so.

For one, Zebra offers software (ZebraNet Bridge Enterprise) that will push label templates to all your zebra printers in just a few clicks; making centralized label templates a moot point.  The Zebra software is only a few hundred dollars.  Once.

As mentioned before, Zebra offers label template design software (Zebra Designer) that is, in my experience, far better than a third parties software. Think of it this way, the easier Zebra makes printing labels, the more hardware/supplies your company will buy from them. On the flip side, with third party vendors like Loftware, the more complex the software, the more consulting services they can sell you.

Lastly, the ERP system, in my case, Oracle, should be robust enough to direct labels to desired printers.  If it’s not, you will likely be better off designing a custom solution in the ERP system rather than implementing a third party package, which itself will require much technical work.

With just a little work, you can be printing labels, directly from Oracle, without any need for virtual machines or complex middleware.

References

ERPschools – Oracle MSCA Label Printing
Zebra – Barcode Printing from Oracle WMS

BI Bublisher: Selecting first record only

October 16, 2015 2 comments

I was looking for a way to only select data from the first record of a group to use in my Master Bill of Lading.  I only needed the address of one of the deliveries on the trip, so I wanted to select the address from the first delivery.  The other deliveries on the trip would be have the same addresses, at least how we are configuring the system.

I found this on a blog post at Oracle.com which seemed to be the answer:

<?for-each:EMPLOYEES[position()='1' or position()=last()]?>

I tried it, and different combinations, for quite some time.  I tried single quotes, double quotes, I tried it in an IF statement. It turns out the single quotes were causing problems.  This is the way it finally worked:

<?for-each:LIST_TRIP_STOP/TRIP_STOP/LIST_DELIVERY/DELIVERY[position()=1]?>

I wonder if Oracle tested this before they published the blog entry.  At least they pointed me in the right direction.

Oracle WMS RUP 12

September 30, 2015 1 comment

Logistics Consolidated RUP12 (VERSION 12.1.1 TO 12.1.3 [RELEASE 12.1])

Patch: 21220763

Fixed Bugs:

Read more…

BI Publisher Provides Our Organization Extreme Agility

September 25, 2012 Leave a comment

A year and a half ago, our company embarked on a project to run Oracle E-business R12. Part of that process included a manufacturing migration from our legacy systems, and the other part included a migration of financial modules from Oracle 11i.  Included in the 11i financial modules was Accounts Payable, thus our Payment process needed to be migrated to R12.  One of my responsibilities was to create the payment output for the R12 system.  Payments in Oracle R12 are rendered with BI Publisher, an Oracle tool I became very skilled with while working on the AP project.  Although limited, BI Publisher has to be one of the most powerful technologies Oracle provides and has allowed our IT organization to become more agile.

From what I heard, it took the previous business analyst two years to get a check printed in the 11i production system, starting at the beginning of that project.  The R12 Payment processing seemed like a daunting task.  But I was up for the challenge and eager to enhance my skill set.

Within the first day of working on the payment output, I was able to get a check printed out of our test system.  Two weeks later I had a check ready to send to our bank for validation.

Although my manager was impressed, he still had some doubts. I have a feeling he was thinking around the lines of, “this is too good to be true; how can someone get a check ready for approval so fast, when took so long previously?” Whatever his thinking was, the bank validation had the ability to halt my swift progress right in its tracks.

Read more…

Refreshing Oracle Self Service Menus and Home Screen

April 6, 2012 Leave a comment

When implementing our RBAC (Role Based Access Control) security model in Oracle, I found it quite irritating when the self service pages would not update to include the newly applied Roles and granted security functions.  Here is the solution I found to refresh the web based pages so they they reflect the user’s newly applied security.

Problem

  • “XXX is not a valid responsibility for the current user” error
  • Not seeing updates from newly assigned or revoked Roles or Responsibilities
  • Changes in self service pages driven by new or changed configurations

Solution

  • Assign yourself the “Functional Administrator” Responsibility.
    • This is a self service responsibility; it must be assigned BEFORE you have the problem which you are trying to solve.
  • Click the Core Services Tab
  • Click the Caching Framework Menu (top)
  • Click the Global Configuration Menu (left)
  • Click the Clear All Cache Button
  • Click the Yes Button

 

QR Codes On Your Business Card

May 27, 2011 1 comment

QR Codes have become tremendously popular over the last few months.  Most companies use QR codes as a way to direct users to websites.  Users can scan a code with their mobile phone, and the phone directs the user to the marketer’s webpage.  The process saves the user time by eliminating the need for the user to type the web address into their phone.

QR Codes are two-dimensional machine readable images.  Much like normal barcodes, such as UPC codes, but with a much higher density of information, and significant redundancy/error correction.  Any simple text can be encoded in a QR Code and then read by a machine using a scanner or camera.

When I was doing some research on QR Codes I found they can be used for other purposes such as encoding VCARDs. VCARD files are simple contact or address book files saved as plain text.  Most address book applications can save and open VCARD files with ease.  Many QR scanner applications recognize QR codes with VCARDs as the encoded text.

So, when I was designing my most recent personal business card I though it would be a neat idea to include a QR encoded VCARD on them.

The first step was getting a VCARD.  Unfortunately this was not an easy task. Although there is a standard for VCARDs, most software applications interpret the standard differently, especially as related to the phone number.  It is worth mentioning that if too much information is in the VCARD text, the QR Code will get denser, and thus harder for phones to read.  Through some trial and error, I ended up with this VCARD:

BEGIN:VCARD
N;LANGUAGE=en-us:Hayes;Ed
EMAIL;INTERNET:ed@edhayes.us
TEL;CELL:440-263-4420
URL:http://www.edhayes.us
ADR:;;;CHICAGO;IL;;
END:VCARD

Any decent QR encoding software should be able to encode this.  I used the one available at http://invx.com/code.  Make sure the encoder encodes the text as the QR code, rather than encoding a URL that directs the user to a page displaying the text.

Finally I placed the encoded QR code image on my business card.   Now, when I give my card to someone, they can scan it with their phone, and my contact gets added to their address book.  Not only does this ensure that there are no typos, it’s much easier for the user to enter my contact information by scanning an image rather than typing on a tiny keyboard.