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Epiglossary

Report styles for BarTender

Kinetic + Classic

On the Epicor side, a BarTender label is just a report style. Instead of rendering through SSRS, a style with the report type Bartender Labels writes the report data to a .bt file and leaves the printing to BarTender. This page covers the two paths a style needs and how the printer is chosen.

Steps

Section titled “Steps”
  1. Open Report Style Maintenance (System Management > Reporting > Report Style).
  2. Find the label report, for example GenShip. It already has an out-of-the-box BarTender style you can review.
  3. Copy that style (or add a new one) so your changes survive upgrades, and give it a clear description, such as “Carton label (BarTender)”.
  4. Confirm Report Type is Bartender Labels and the Data Definition is the one for this report (GenShip here, or your own copy).
  5. Set Report Location to the .btw template, written as a path the BarTender server can open. Epicor passes this value through into the file’s %BTW% header, and BarTender opens whatever it says.
  6. Set Output Location to the folder the BarTender integration scans. Leave it blank on an on-premises server to use the default, a Bartender\<CompanyID> folder under the server’s EpicorData folder. On cloud environments running on Linux, use the mounted path described in cloud and Linux.
  7. Save, then print one label from the report’s own screen and check that a .bt file appears in the output folder.

Keep the folders separate

Section titled “Keep the folders separate”

Use three distinct locations, and don’t nest one inside another:

Folder Written by Read by
Templates (.btw) Label designers BarTender, at print time
Output (.bt, the folder to scan) Epicor The BarTender integration
Processed / archive The BarTender integration People, when checking history

Mixing them causes confusing symptoms: processed files being printed a second time, files from one environment printed by another environment’s integration, or a cleanup script deleting templates.

How the printer is chosen

Section titled “How the printer is chosen”

Epicor doesn’t send anything to the printer. When a label report runs, the printer you pick (in the print dialog or in an Auto Print widget) is written into the .bt header, and BarTender prints to the printer of that name. That has two consequences:

  • The printer must exist on the BarTender server with exactly the same name.
  • If the file is written to a folder that no integration watches, nothing prints and Epicor reports no error. The report task still shows as completed.

When the Use Default Printer option is used, Epicor first tries the workstation’s default label printer and then falls back to the default label printer set for the company.

Adding fields to a label

Section titled “Adding fields to a label”

The fields available on the label are the columns in the report’s data definition. If you need one that isn’t there, copy the report data definition, add the table or field to the copy, and point your report style at the copy. The new column then appears in the .bt file for the template to use.

Section titled “Related”