Manhattan SCALE

Overview

Manhattan SCALE is a warehouse management solution for retailers available across a variety of deployment options (cloud, on premise, etc.) It runs on Windows using SQL Server as the database.

Best Practices

eFORMz  supports several methods for integration, including relational database queries, web service calls, virtual printer and monitoring a directory. For more information, view the following resource: How Does eFORMz Integrate? In the case of Manhattan SCALE, the typical integration approach is a combination of virtual printer and database queries:

Virtual Printer

eFORMz can look like nearly any printer including Toshiba, Zebra, and laser printers. Simply add eFORMz as a new printer in your software application. Your application prints to the eFORMz virtual printer, which captures the print stream as a file. eFORMz combines and formats the file, possibly with data from additional sources for output to a thermal or laser printer.

Resources on the eFORMz virtual printer

LPD Communication
Configuring the eFORMz Port Monitor

Relational Database Queries

eFORMz can submit SQL queries, call stored procedures or user-defined functions, and even do SQL updates and inserts. Data retrieved from the database server can be placed onto your form or label or used with an eFORMz rule to customize content.

Summary

In our experience, most SCALE users utilize ConnectShip for their shipping requirements. eFORMz typically captures shipping labels generated out of ConnectShip using the eFORMz virtual printer. If a different shipping method is being employed, contact Minisoft support for detailed information on integration, as in some instances eFORMz integrates with shipping solutions through web service calls or database queries. The default Manhattan SCALE integration method usually looks like the following:

• The shipping label is sent to the eFORMz virtual printer
• The information is captured from the shipping label and used for matching with a form (packing lists, purchase orders, bill of ladings, etc.)
• A stored procedure, a web service call or some other action is executed to retrieve the form data
• The data is captured through eFORMz variables
• The data is placed and positioned on the form

Manhattan SCALE will print a shipping label to the virtual printer and the virtual printer will “print”/send the shipping label file to eFORMz, where it can extract the tracking number or some unique piece of data from it. Why do we want to extract the tracking number/unique piece of data? It’s a common identifier for a database to distinguish data among different pack slip orders. It’s commonly used as a parameter for stored procedures in database calls. eFORMz will call the database with the input parameter of the tracking number and the database will output the data for that shipping label’s form to eFORMz. eFORMz now has the shipping label from the virtual printer and the form’s data from the database call. eFORMz can then print out the shipping label and the form together on the same printer, use different printers, email the form as a PDF attachment or archive the output for purposes of document retention.