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Queue and routing

Hold documents and use workflows

A printer URL that never prints by itself, and workflows that hold documents until someone continues them.

Sometimes a document should not be printed right away: a fax should be checked first, a document should be signed, or you only decide later on which printer it belongs. Printing to a workflow holds the document in Sealed Print. It waits with the status In processing ("Waiting for you") until someone continues it to its destinations or discards it.

Every organization has the built-in workflow Hold in Sealed Print: a printer that never prints by itself. You can create further workflows that continue to fixed destinations.

Prerequisites

  • Included in every plan. Any member can create workflows; they belong to the person who created them.
  • A source with its printer URLs, or an inbound email address.

One-time setup

Use the hold printer

Every source shows a printer URL named Hold in Sealed Print (…/ipp/print/<token>/hold). Add it on your computer like any other printer URL. By email, add +hold to your address, or choose the workflow on the email address.

Create your own workflow

  1. Go to Destinations → Workflows and select New workflow.
  2. Enter a name, for example "Check before printing". The identifier becomes part of its printer URL (…/ipp/print/<token>/<identifier>).
  3. Under Afterwards, choose where the document goes when someone continues it. Empty means the default routing.
  4. Optionally switch on Share with all members. A shared workflow can only continue to shared destinations and groups.
  5. Select Create.

Get an email when a document waits

On the Workflows tab, switch on Email me when one of my documents waits. You then get an email with a link whenever a document you printed is held.

Every time

  1. Print to the workflow's printer URL, or send an email to the address with +<identifier>.
  2. The job appears in the Queue as In processing. Open it.
  3. Select Continue and choose destinations, or keep the choice empty to use the workflow's targets (or the default routing). Or select Discard: the job is not delivered, and its document is deleted after the retention period.

Identifiers after the workflow decide where the job goes afterwards: …/hold/office holds the job and then prints it on the destination "office".

To put an existing job through a workflow, open it and choose More → Process. A job that was already delivered is duplicated first.

Troubleshooting

  • "The job is in processing. Continue or discard it first.": held jobs cannot be sent, retried or duplicated until a decision is made.
  • "Held until the end of the retention period without a decision": nobody continued the job before the retention period ended. Print it again.
  • "Built-in workflows cannot be deleted": Hold in Sealed Print is always there; you can simply not use it.

What's next