How to Print Labels via RESTful Web API With SENTINEL

In today's TekTip, I will be showing SENTINEL's RESTful Web API input plug-in. SENTINEL's RESTful Web API input plug-in can be accessed by creating a new watch in SENTINEL or accessing an existing one.

You go to the Input tab and select the REST Web Server API from your dropdown list of available inputs. From there you click Settings and add a new one or modify an existing one. You pick the network adapter in which you'd like to receive the inputs, as well as the port in which it's listening to. You can configure it to work with an API key authorization or an HTTPS configuration, if your RESTful web server requires those. You can also have the database be cleaned up every hour, half hour, fifteen minutes, or store the information permanently for you to clean up manually. From there you click OK, OK, and OK, and start your watch. 

Today, I'll be doing all my printing to a PDF printer so you can see the outcome, knowing that the majority of our clients are actually printing to physical thermal transfer printers. I'm using an application called Swagger that would represent your ERP, custom app, or various business systems that will be triggering these print jobs through SENTINEL.

You can see today's example is printing the Identity label to my PDF printer with an address of "307 8th Avenue". When I click Execute, you'll notice that the RESTful Web API switches to Parsing, passes my job, and we generate our print-out. So you can see this print-out is for "307 8th Avenue." If we update our print request to be "9th Avenue" and execute one more, you'll notice SENTINEL received the job, processed it, and the new print job contains the updated information.

My favorite part about the RESTful Web API plug-in is the ease of feedback. You can see that not only are we executing the print job, but we're receiving immediate feedback about that print job and whether it passed or completed or any errors that may have happened for a more seamless integration for print automation using SENTINEL.

Thanks for watching today's TekTip on how to use the RESTful Web API input plug-in with SENTINEL. For more information, visit us at teklynx.com or access our Support Center at support.teklynx.com. Thank you for allowing us to help you barcode better.