How to trigger prints when fulfilling in Linnworks using our Chrome extension
See the introductory guide on how to download and install this in your web browser.
Configuration
After installing the extension, pin it to your bookmarks bar then click the Penny Black logo icon to load the options.
Choose Linnworks as the fulfilment system
- You’ll be working in Live mode
- We will provide you with an API Key
- List any of the Penny Black Merchant IDs of any merchants you are fulfilling for here. The extension will only attempt to print for these merchants. If you are using Linnworks just for yourself as a merchant then this can be left empty (see below for what these values should be)
- We will agree with you on the Print location names. This routes the prints for this bench to the correct printer. You will enter a different value here in each workstation using a different printer.
- If you prefer clicking a button explicitly to print then you can uncheck Automatic Printing
- Button Action of Download combined with a Downloads Recipient Email is for batch printing only. Rather than triggering a print on a satellite, this button will email you a link to the generated PDF to download and print yourself.
1. Single order printing (”on demand”)
Order and merchant identifiers
The Chrome extension works by ‘scraping’ the information about the orders from the page and sending them to Penny Black in a print API call.
For Linnworks in single printing mode, these 2 important identifiers are displayed at the top of the dispatch console:
- The order id from the e-commerce platform
- The merchant id. This value does not appear to be flexible within Linnworks, so it must be entered into Penny Black app settings as the Fulfilment ID for each respective merchant that is fulfilling using Linnworks. If you are fulfilling multiple merchants then make sure you list this value for all merchants using Penny Black into the popup config menu on separate lines.
Usage
Access the Dispatch console from the menu:
Enter an order number (or more likely, scan a barcode):
The order will load and if the extension is activated correctly you will see a pink Reprint button on the left side of the action buttons:
Automatic printing
If this is enabled from the extension configuration menu, orders will automatically be printed as soon as the above screen is loaded.
We only attempt an automated print once per order. If you revisit this screen it will not automatically print. This is to avoid duplicates and prevent waste of card and ink.
If an error occurs with the print request then it will be displayed, otherwise there will be no message shown for automatic printing.
Manual printing
In addition to automatic, there is a manual button as a fallback in case there was an error initially, or if you need to reprint for any reason.
If this button appears grey it means that no print is available for this order:
When manually printing you will see a confirmation of the request in a popup window in the bottom-right corner:
2. Batch printing by Pick Wave
Batch printing orders in a pick wave is possible from the Open Orders list page. When on this page, a Print Pick Wave button will display on the menu bar at the bottom of the page:
Clicking on this button will display a prompt within your browser to enter the ID of the Pick Wave you wish to print. Enter the Pick Wave ID and Select OK in this prompt and it will start the process of triggering prints for all orders within this Pick Wave.
3. Batch printing or PDF download by manual order selection
Batch printing selected orders is also possible from the main Orders list page. Due to the structure of the Linnworks page, you must first Export the orders that you select to a CSV file, then re-upload this file to Penny Black.
Configuration
This facility must be enabled in the extension popup window through the Enable CSV uploads option. You can then choose the action which is either to print directly via your local Penny Black satellite and printer, or to email you a link so that you can download generated PDFs and print them yourself.
Once enabled, and if you are configured with only a single merchant ID, an appropriately named button will appear on the bottom bar to either Print or Download from CSV:
The Penny Black action button will only be visible when you only have 1 merchant ID configured in the extension. The merchant IDs of orders are not displayed on this screen, so we must use the configured ID to trigger the prints.
Operation
First, you must select some orders using the tickboxes and export them to a CSV
This file will be saved locally on your computer.
Now you can click the Download from CSV or Print from CSV button at the bottom, which will open a dialog where you can select the file you just downloaded:
After clicking the Upload CSV button the file will be processed and submitted for printing or email download and a message confirming the result will be displayed:
