Print Service

Overview

The Print Service sends queued reports to network printers. On a fixed timer it checks SBN for any documents waiting to be printed, then routes each one to the printer named on the request. PDF reports and RTF documents are each printed using the appropriate engine; if a request does not name a printer, or names one the machine cannot see, the service falls back to the Windows default printer.

At start-up the service compares the printers installed on this Windows machine against the printers defined in SBN and records which ones match, so that only valid, reachable printers are used. If no printers can be seen at all — commonly because the account running the service cannot view printers — the service logs the reason and stops. If a print attempt fails it is retried up to a configurable number of times before being marked failed.

The Print Service requires a working SBN data-server connection. It also reads the reports output folder from the Report Service so it can locate the files it prints.

Service Manager

Instructions for installing and interacting with this service is found here.

Service Properties

Only properties specific to this service are listed here. Common service properties (SBN Server connection, Logging, SMTP) are found here.

Timer (In Seconds)

How often the service checks SBN for new documents to print. The service waits this many seconds between cycles, then prints any new documents waiting in the queue.

Max Records

The maximum number of queued documents pulled from SBN and printed on each timer pass.

Max Retries

How many times a document is re-sent to the printer before it is marked as failed.

Reports PDF Directory

The folder the service looks in to find the report files it prints. This is shown for reference only and is configured in the Report Service properties, not here.