This guide provides instructions on how to use the Bucket hub and Build Plate feature, allowing efficient management of print jobs by filtering them into a single plate for production. This system ensures optimized print production by grouping jobs based on specific criteria and triggering plate builds when predefined conditions are met.
Key Features
Job Filtering: Users can create buckets that act as filters for jobs. All filtered jobs are directed to a single plate, which is triggered for production when certain conditions are fulfilled.
Flexible Plate Triggers: Plate builds can be triggered either by job/item count thresholds or specific times.
Note: Additional restrictions set at the plate imposition stage can split plate defined based on bucketing rules into more granular plates based on more specific imposition rules (e.g. plate can be additionally split into separate plates per different substrates)
Navigating the Bucketing hub
Accessing the Feature:
This feature is located under the Dispatch Production menu.
The main page lists all available buckets. Each bucket can be either active or inactive and can be filtered, edited, or deleted.
Creating and Managing Buckets:
To create a new bucketing rule, open the Bucketing hub and click Create bucketing rule. You can filter jobs by customer and product model.
Every bucket must have a single product model as a required attribute. Other filter options will vary depending on the selected product model.
For example:
A foam print model may have filters like color type and foam format.
Defining Filters
Filter by Client:
Users can filter jobs based on client names, ensuring that only selected clients' jobs are grouped into the same plate.
Narrowing Job Filters:
Additional attributes such as color type or format can be used to further narrow down the jobs being included in a bucket. This ensures that jobs with similar characteristics are grouped for efficient plate builds.
Triggering Plate Builds
There are two ways to define when a plate build is triggered:
Threshold-Based Triggers:
Define a threshold based on either the number of jobs or the total number of items in the bucket (e.g., 100 cards or 100 posters).
A single job may contain multiple items. For instance, one job might have 100 cards, which would trigger the plate build as soon as the threshold is met.
Time-Based Triggers:
Users can set specific times or days for the plate build to be triggered.
Example: You can schedule the plate build to trigger 3 times per week or 3 times per day at specific times (e.g., 12:00 PM and 4:00 PM).
Note: If the job threshold is reached before the scheduled time, the plate build will trigger earlier.
Saving and Monitoring Buckets
Saving the Bucket:
Once the job filters and plate build triggers are defined, the bucket is saved.
Plate Build Activation:
When the set threshold or time condition is met, the plate build is automatically triggered.
For example:
If 10 jobs are received before 12:00 PM, the plate build will be triggered before the scheduled time.
If only 9 jobs are received and the time reaches 12:00 PM, the plate build will still be triggered at the scheduled time.
Customer Support
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