General settings

General settings are deployment-wide controls that take effect without restarting Pluraprint. They are intended for operational choices that administrators may change regularly; printer, site, rule, and quota configuration remains on those resources.

Open Admin in the sidebar, then choose Settings. Viewing the page requires the General Settings: View permission. Changing or resetting a value also requires General Settings: Update.

Finding a setting#

The page groups settings into sections: job submission, dispatch, printer control, data retention, and pickup handling if you run it. Three things above the list narrow it:

• Search matches a setting’s name, its explanation, its key, and the choices inside a dropdown. Searching for alphabetical finds the pickup option of that name without your having to know which setting it belongs to. Extra words narrow rather than widen: retention days finds only settings matching both.
• All sections limits the page to one section.
• Modified shows only what somebody on this deployment has changed from Pluraprint’s shipped default: usually the fastest way to understand a deployment you did not set up yourself.

Your search and filters are part of the address, so a filtered page is a link you can send to a colleague.

Linking to one setting#

Every section heading and every setting has a link button beside it: hover over the row, or tab to it. Choosing it copies a link that opens Settings scrolled to that exact control, with the setting briefly highlighted so it is obvious which one was meant. (On a deployment served over plain HTTP, where browsers do not allow copying to the clipboard, the link is put in your address bar instead.)

Pluraprint uses these links itself: the Pickup settings button on the Pickup page, and each Settings link on the Modules page, open the section they are talking about rather than the top of this page.

Changes take effect immediately#

A saved value reaches every open browser and every station screen within a second, without a reload. That matters most for the settings that change what a screen offers rather than what happens behind it: the pickup workflow settings, above all, since a station standing at the shelves has nobody to notice it is still showing yesterday’s answer.

Job submission fields#

The Project tracking setting controls whether the optional department and cost center fields appear while users configure a new print job. Turning it off only hides the fields: existing values remain stored and visible on existing jobs. The related Jobs by Project analytics card is also hidden while the setting is off.

Print dispatch mode#

The print dispatch mode controls which compatible printer receives a queued job:

• Any compatible printer sends the job to the first available printer that satisfies its model and material requirements. This prioritizes throughput.
• Fewest loaded materials reserves more versatile printers for jobs that need them. If several printers at the job’s site are compatible, only those with the lowest total number of loaded materials are eligible. Printers tied for the lowest count are all eligible.

Changes apply to the next dispatch decision. Choose Reset to default beside a modified setting to resume using Pluraprint’s shipped default.

Printer control#

Stop prints not started by Pluraprint decides what happens when a printer in your fleet is running something Pluraprint didn’t send it: a file loaded from a USB stick at the machine, or a job pushed from the manufacturer’s app.

The setting is off by default, and while it is off such a print is simply left running: Pluraprint reports it on the printer and waits for the machine to become free. Turn the setting on and Pluraprint stops those prints instead.

Stopping a print scraps the part, so this only ever acts on positive evidence. Pluraprint leaves a print running whenever the printer’s model cannot be stopped remotely, whenever it cannot confidently tell who started the print, whenever it believes one of its own jobs is on that printer, and whenever the printer is marked down. A print also has to still be running several status checks later before anything is stopped. See Prints started outside Pluraprint for the full behavior, and check the audit log for a record of every stop Pluraprint issued on its own.

Data retention#

The Data retention settings control whether finished print jobs and their design files are deleted once they pass an age you choose. Retention is off by default and deletes permanently, so read Data retention before turning it on.