Use this article when your shop has more than one possible production path for a step and you need Estimator to prefer or exclude a specific route — for example, keeping cover lamination on a digital line, or stopping a wide-format press from being chosen for short-run leaflets. After this you will have the same tag applied across the substrate, machine, and product part that should share a route, with Estimator picking the intended path on the quote.

Before you begin

Decide the routing rule in shop terms first. Examples: cover lamination must stay on the HP Indigo line; large-format substrates must only route to wide-format presses. Write the rule down before opening Estimate Setup.
Choose one tag string and use it everywhere the route should match. Avoid near-duplicates such as Digital, digital print, and digital-print — Estimator treats them as different tags.

Steps

1. Tag the substrate

Open Estimate Setup → Substrates and open the substrate row that belongs to the route. Fill in the field below.

Routing

Tags — add the tag string you decided in Before you begin. Type the new tag if it does not exist yet; Estimator creates the tag record on save. Keep tags lower-case-hyphenated (commercial-sheet, digital-cover-lamination, wide-format) to avoid casing mismatches. If the substrate already has tags, add the new one alongside — do not replace existing tags unless you have confirmed they are unused.

Save the change. The Pending Changes count increments by one in the sidebar.

2. Tag the machine record

Open Estimate Setup → Print Machines or Estimate Setup → Finishing Machines depending on the step. Open the machine row that should be eligible for this route. Fill in the field below.

Routing

Tags — add the same tag string you added in Step 1, character-identical. Estimator pairs the substrate and the machine when the tag overlaps. If the machine should be eligible for more than one route, add a tag per route — commercial-sheet,digital-cover-lamination is two tags, not one combined value.

Save the change. Pending Changes increments again.

3. (Optional) Tag the category part

Open Estimate Setup → Products → Categories, open the affected category, and open the Category Parts row. Fill in the field below only if the route should be narrowed at the part level — for example, when the same machine is valid for one part of a product but not another.

Routing

Tags — add the same tag string. When Tags is empty on the part, Estimator treats the part as unrestricted by tags and considers any tag-matching machine that also passes the physical-eligibility checks. When Tags is set, only machines that share at least one tag with the part are considered.

Skip this step entirely for shops where the routing rule applies at the substrate-and-machine level only. Save the change if you edited the part.

4. Apply the changes

Open the Pending Changes panel in the sidebar and review the staged edits to the substrate, the machine, and the part (if you edited the part). Select Apply Changes to publish them to live setup.

The Pending Changes count returns to zero. Create or recalculate a quote that should use the route. Open the Issue analysis panel on the quote — the substrate and the machine appear together on the assigned route. If a machine you wanted to exclude is still on the route, it is missing the tag (or has a wildcard empty-tags state); return to Step 2 for that record.

Things to know

Empty Tags on a substrate or a machine act as unrestricted — Estimator considers that row for every tag. If a wildcard machine keeps appearing on a route you want narrow, add a tag to it that you do not apply to the substrate it should not match.
Shared tags do not override physical limits. If the route is still wrong after tags match, open Issue analysis on the quote and read Excluded machines — the reason names the limit that excluded the machine (sheet size, weight range, step type).
A category part inherits no tags from its parent category. Tags on the part must be set independently when you want a part-level routing restriction.