Print jobs
A handler who sends letters by post wants them printed as one stack, and wants to know when the printer has them. Filinq sends a selection of letters to print as one job and lists your jobs with their status.
Send letters to print
- Open Letters & correspondence.
- Fill in the template, then either the data references of one letter or, under Batch (multiple recipients), the register, the schema and one recipient id per line.
- Choose Send to print. However many letters you selected, they go as one job.
A note confirms the job and links to Print jobs.
Follow a job
Print jobs lists the jobs you sent, newest first. Each row shows:
- when you sent it and the file name
- how many letters have a PDF, out of how many in the job
- the status and when it last changed: making the PDFs, waiting for the printer, at the printer, printed or failed
- what the print service said with its last status, if anything
- a download once at least one PDF is ready: the PDF for a job of one letter, a ZIP with every PDF and a manifest otherwise
The page reads the list again once a minute. Only your own jobs are listed; an admin opens someone else's job by its id.
How a print service reports back
A print service signs in as the job's owner or as an admin. It reads a job
with GET /apps/filinq/api/print/jobs/{id},
downloads it from /apps/filinq/api/print/jobs/{id}/download and reports
with PUT /apps/filinq/api/print/jobs/{id}/status and a body
{"status": "printing" | "sent" | "printed" | "failed", "details": "..."}.
printing and sent both show as at the printer.
Where the job is kept
A job is a printJob object in the Filinq register, with its status,
requester, letter count and file references. The PDFs are files in the app
data folder print-jobs, never in app configuration. When the app is
upgraded, a repair step moves any job still kept in app configuration by an
older version into this shape and removes the old entry.