Configuring TotalFlow Production Manager

At a minimum, you must have at least one workflow and one printer to use TotalFlow Production Manager.

Workflows receive jobs and submit the jobs to TotalFlow Production Manager printers. Workflows receive jobs through these job submission methods:

TotalFlow applications

You can submit jobs to TotalFlow Production Manager workflows from these programs:

• RICOH TotalFlow Prep
• RICOH TotalFlow Production Manager Job Submission
• RICOH TotalFlow PM PDF Print Driver

Hot folder

You can specify a folder as a hot folder for a workflow. You can use file copy or FTP to copy print files to the hot folder.

LPD

You can use the LPD protocol to send print files to a workflow.

MarcomCentral Web-to-print system

You can use MarcomCentral connections to create orders. TotalFlow Production Manager automatically receives orders from the MarcomCentral stores that you connected, processes the orders as requested, provides status updates, creates packing slips, invoices and settlements.

You create printers to represent printer devices in TotalFlow Production Manager. Printers receive jobs from workflows and send jobs to printer devices. The type of printer that you create to represent a printer device depends on the capabilities of the printer device:

The type of printer that you create in TotalFlow Production Manager to represent a printer device depends on the capabilities of the printer device:

Job Ticket printer

Job Ticket printers are associated with printer devices that support job tickets. You can specify job options by editing the job tickets for jobs assigned to Job Ticket printers.

TotalFlow Production Manager workflows that are associated with Job Ticket printers can receive jobs from these programs:

• RICOH TotalFlow Production Manager Job Submission
• RICOH TotalFlow Prep
• RICOH TotalFlow PM PDF Print Driver
• External online applications such as MarcomCentral Web-to-print system.

They can also receive jobs in a hot folder or from a print command that uses the line printer daemon (LPD) protocol. Job Ticket printers can communicate directly with printer devices and obtain status on the jobs while they are printing.

Passthrough printer

Passthrough printers are associated with printer devices that can print jobs in many different formats, for example, PCL, PostScript, and PDF. Jobs assigned to passthrough printers do not have job tickets. TotalFlow Production Manager workflows that are associated with Passthrough printers can receive these jobs in a hot folder or from a print command that uses the LPD protocol. Passthrough printers cannot report job status.

Passthrough printers can receive jobs from RICOH TotalFlow Production Manager Job Submission.

This figure shows how jobs flow from workflows to TotalFlow Production Manager printers and then to printer devices:

To create and test a simple configuration, do these steps:

1. Configure a printer to represent the output printer device.
2. Configure a workflow to use one or more of the job submission methods.
3. Associate the workflow with the printer.
4. Submit a job to the workflow using the appropriate job submission type.
5. Check for output from the printer device.