Printing solution

This chapter provides an overview of the major features of the new EDI Exchange printing solution that have been implemented with this release:

Highlights of the new print bundle

These are the highlights of the print bundle for the new release:

  • The EDI Exchange Printing Service has been moved from the Fortress model to a Microservice design.
  • Print requests continue to be persisted in the tenant database. Print resources such as print templates, print dispatchers, and other trading partner-specific files are now also persisted in the tenant database.
  • The new design leverages AWS SQS and adopts the ION API gateway to transfer print requests and print resources from the EDI Exchange cloud services to the On-Premises Print Agent and the print engine InterFormNG.
  • The new EDI Exchange On-Premises Print Agent has been introduced with this release.
  • Unlike ST cloud versions of EDI Exchange, the print engine InterFormNG is installed on-premises with this release.
  • The new design eliminates the requirement of a VPN tunnel from the EDI Exchange cloud components to on-premises software for printing purposes.
  • The new design provides printing capabilities and print resource synchronization capabilities for standard print resource files.

Deployment details of the printing solution

This section provides a high-level overview of the deployment model of EDI Exchange v12.0.05 Printing Solution:

  • The print requests are created by the EDI Exchange services that are deployed in the cloud.
  • EDI Exchange services persist print requests and print resources in a PostgreSQL database.
  • In this case, AWS SQS is used to hold the notifications of print requests and print resource changes. One SQS print queue is configured per tenant.
  • The On-Premises Print Agent listens to these notifications from SQS.
  • The On-Premises Print Agent securely communicates with the EDI Exchange cloud services and the on-premises print engine InterFormNG.
  • The On-Premises Print Agent retrieves the print content and the print resources from the EDI Exchange cloud services through the ION API gateway. The On-Premises Print Agent forwards the print content and the print resources to the on-premises print engine InterFormNG.

Requirements for the installation of the On-premises Print Client

This section provides requirements for the installation of the On-Premises Print Agent:

  • Customers must download the On-Premises Print Agent from the Download Center.
  • The downloaded image includes the On-Premises Print Agent and the InterFormNG print engine. Customers must have a license for InterFormNG.
  • The On-Premises Print Agent requires a Windows server.
  • We highly recommend to use at least two instances of On-Premises Print Agent and InterFormNG for high availability reasons. Customers can work with a single instance if they choose to.
  • The On-Premises Print Agent does not require any Infor OS components.
  • After the installation, the On-Premises Print Agent must be registered as an authorized backend application within ION API in the cloud.

Installation steps

There are three steps to install the On-Premises Print Agent:

  • Register the On-Premises Print Agent as an authorized backend application within ION API. Retrieve the credentials from the ION API gateway.
  • Retrieve the SQS URL information for the Printing Service from the Client Configurations page in EDI Exchange.
  • Use the installation wizard to install the On-Premises Print Agent.

Configuration of the ION API gateway

In ION API, the Available APIs page holds information about the EDI Exchange REST endpoints. These endpoints are automatically configured in ION API during the tenant provisioning process.

On the Authorized Apps page, the On-Premises Print Agent must be configured as an authorized backend application within ION API. OAuth 2.0 is used as authentication here. The settings must be created manually and configured after a tenant is provisioned.

Save the endpoints and download the credential file. This information must be entered during the installation.

On-premises Print Client configurations

The Client Configurations page can be accessed from the Printing menu in EDI Exchange.

The configuration of the On-Premises Print Agent is automatically generated as part of the tenant provisioning process.

The SQS URL of the print queue is displayed in the Print Queue URL field. The SQS URL is a required information for the On-Premises Print Agent installation.

On-premises Print Client installation wizard

The installer installs the On-Premises Print Agent and InterFormNG.

The installation wizard prompts the user for the SQS URL and the ION API credentials.

After the installation, the InterFormNG print engine must be configured.

To apply the standard print resources to the InterFormNG print engine, the user must access Global > Print Resources Zip in EDI Exchange. On this page, click Apply Std Print Resources Files.

Print request flow

In EDI Exchange, print requests can be triggered by Shipping, or Transformation. The print requests are routed to the Printing Service. The Printing Service runs through these steps to process a print request:

  • The Printing Service persists the print request to the tenant database.
  • The Printing Service then sends a print notification to AWS SQS.
  • The On-Premises Print Agent polls SQS by the long polling method. When it reads a print notification from SQS, it pulls the print content from the Printing Service through the ION API gateway.
  • The On-Premises Print Agent forwards this print content to InterFormNG.
  • InterFormNG performs print, email and PDF generations depending on its configurations.
  • After the required jobs are completed, InterFormNG reports the status to the On-Premises Print Agent.
  • The On-Premises Print Agent forwards this status to the Printing Service through the ION API gateway.
  • The Printing Service persists this status in the tenant database table against the entry of the print request.
  • Scheduler tasks are configured to poll the tenant database. They retrieve the print status and report this status to Shipping or Transformation.

Print resources synchronization

With EDI Exchange v12.0.05, databases serve as master repositories for the print resource files.

The synchronization process of print resources such as print templates, dispatcher templates and other InterFormNG resource files also leverages AWS SQS and the ION API gateway.

These are key points of the synchronization process of print resources from the cloud components to on-premises:

  • Standard print resources are persisted in the global database of EDI Exchange.
  • Updates of the standard resource files are automatically delivered to the tenant’s on-premises InterFormNG print engine. This is a silent update.
  • Standard print resources can be added and updated by this process. Any deletions or clean-ups must be performed manually during customer down time.
  • To trigger the standard print resources synchronization process the user can access Global > Print Resources Zip in EDI Exchange. On this page, click Apply Std Print Resources File to start the synchronization process.
  • Under Global > Print Templates and Global > Dispatcher Templates users can download standard print resource files. These standard print resource files can be used to generate custom resource files if required.
  • Custom print resource files are persisted in the tenant database.
  • Under Printing > Print Templates and Printing > Dispatcher Templates users can upload any custom print resource files to EDI Exchange. If custom print resource files are changed, users can use these pages to upload them and then manually update the InterFormNG installation. Uploading custom print resource files through the self-service menus is important to keep these files synchronized with the on-premises InterFormNG files.
  • User can also download any custom print resource files of a specific tenant.

For details, see Infor EDI Exchange On-Premises Communication and Print Agent Configuration Guide.