tFLOW Documentation - 09. Send to Production

 

 

 

Once a job has made it through its production steps in tFLOW – creation, artwork upload, revisions, and approval, the final stage is to send the production file to the printer, CTP, imposition system, or other output device.  The Send to Production option manages this functionality and has three variations: Send to Production, AutoSend, Send Again.  In order to work, tBOT must be installed and configured correctly - see the tBOT documentation for more information.

 

 

 

 

 

The Send to Production command is only available at the Job level, as only jobs can be sent to production.  You may send multiple jobs at the same time by selecting several and then executing the command, but there is no option for sending an order.  To be available, the Send to Production permission must be enabled for your user profile, and the Job must be in Approved state (you cannot send jobs from other states such as Archived, On Hold, Awaiting Approval, etc.).  Note that the default user profiles are configured so that only site owning users can send files to production. 

 

Jobs which meet the requirements above will have several places in which to select the Send to Production option, depending on which view you are in in tFLOW.

 

On job tile:

 

 

 

Job options top of window:

 

 

 

Job options menu:

 

 

 

After selecting the Send to Production option, the send window opens allowing you to select/change output queues and initiate the sending action.  If you previously made queue selections in the order or job configuration, those choices will be displayed.  If no queue selections were made prior to Sending to Production, no queues will be selected, and you are required to select at least one queue in order to Send.

 

 

 

If no queues are available, check to make sure that tBOT has been configured correctly and is running.  Production queues are removed from the tFLOW window after 48 hours of not being connected to tBOT.  Once connection is established with tBOT, queues will reappear.

 

Clicking the Send to Production button in tFLOW marks the job for download, but it is tBOT which connects and initiates the download.  Therefore, it depends on your tBOT settings (check every x minutes) to determine when download will begin.

 

 

 

You have the option of sending approved files to production directly with no action required.  If you prefer to have this step automated, contact support@aleyant.com to have this option turned on for your system. Once configured, all approved jobs (which have at least one queue assigned) will automatically download to their respective production queues with no action required from any user.  Note that any jobs which do not have at least one queue assigned will remain in the “Sending to Production” state, until you define at least one production queue.

 

 

 

Jobs that have already been sent to production display the “Send Again” option and may be sent again using the same steps as described in Send to Production.  To resend a job to production, select Send Again, and either make a new queue selection, or directly click the Send to Production Button.