Chasing Uncollected Prints

Some prints are never collected. Pickup lets you decide what happens about that, as rules rather than as a standing instruction to whoever is on the desk.

Rules live on Admin → Automation, alongside every other automation rule. Filter the trigger list to the pickup ones.

The three moments you can react to#

Trigger	When it runs
A print has been waiting to be collected	On a schedule you set on the rule, over everything still waiting. It also runs straight away for a print that has just passed its deadline, or that a bin check has just seen. This is the one to use for “email at two weeks”.
A waiting print is seen during a bin check	Each time somebody scans a print while walking the shelves.
A waiting print is collected	When somebody finally takes it: scanned at a counter, marked collected from the list, or found gone at a bin check. Use this to undo what an earlier rule did.

What you can condition on#

Waiting time, whether it is overdue, how many days overdue, the current status, which bin, how long since anybody actually saw it: plus everything you already condition on elsewhere: who the print belongs to, what roles they hold, the print’s size and cost, and the time of day.

Overdue becomes true the moment the Collect within deadline passes. Overdue by counts whole days, so it stays at 0 for the first day after the deadline. Use Overdue for a rule that should act as soon as a print is late.

What you can do#

• Send a notification to the owner inside Pluraprint.
• Email the owner through an enabled Email integration.
• Restrict them from printing under a print restriction policy. The policy decides how long, from the person’s own history. Needs approval unless you turn that off.
• Add or remove a role: for instance moving somebody into a restricted group. Needs approval unless you turn that off.
• Mark the print abandoned. A label, not a lock. It can still be collected.
• Record the print as disposed of. Final, and it is somebody’s work, so it needs approval unless you turn that off.
• Give them longer to collect.

Emailing after a one-week shelf scan#

To send a reminder only when staff confirm that the print is still there:

1. In Admin → Integrations, open an enabled Email integration, add Automation Message under Email Events, and save it. Outbound email must be configured for your deployment.
2. In Admin → Automation, create a rule on A waiting print is seen during a bin check.
3. Add the condition Waiting for is greater than or equal to 7.
4. Add Email the owner and write the reminder, for example: “Your print is still waiting for collection. Please pick it up when you can.”
5. Save the enabled rule with Test mode off when you’re ready to send emails.

Waiting for counts whole days since the print finished. A qualifying bin-check scan queues the email immediately, with the print name, current pickup bin, collection deadline, and a View Print link when your dashboard URL is configured. A normal placement or collection scan doesn’t run this trigger.

Each email action queues a message once per print. Further scans don’t repeat it. For separate one-week and two-week reminders, create separate rules with those thresholds. Checking a rule more often doesn’t turn it into a recurring reminder.

The Email integration’s verified-address requirement still applies. Owners without an email address, unconfigured delivery, and missing Automation Message subscriptions appear as failed actions in the rule’s activity. Once queued, follow delivery through the Email integration’s Logs; queuing a reminder doesn’t confirm that it was delivered or read. If several Email integrations subscribe to Automation Message, each sends its own email.

Restricting someone once a print is overdue#

A print restriction policy only decides how long a restriction lasts. Nothing is restricted under it until a rule issues one. Admin → Print restrictions shows which rules issue each policy, and warns when none do.

To restrict the owner of every print that is not collected in time:

1. On Admin → Automation, create a rule on A print has been waiting to be collected.
2. Add the condition Overdue is true.
3. Add the effect Restrict them from printing and choose your policy.
4. Turn on Skip approval for changes to people’s access if restrictions should apply without somebody confirming each one. Otherwise each one waits on the Automation page.

The rule restricts each person once per print. When it acts depends on how your deployment records collections:

• Collections are scanned or recorded as they happen. The rule acts within the hour after the deadline passes.
• A bin check is how you find out a print was taken. The rule acts when a bin check scans the print after its deadline, and the scan shows the restriction. A print that is gone by the next check is treated as collected on time. See When bin checks record collections.

A ladder, not a first match#

Pickup rules are set union: every rule whose conditions hold contributes what it says. So “email at two weeks” and “restrict at four weeks” are two rules, and at four weeks both are true. The person gets the email and the restriction.

That is on purpose. The alternative (first match wins) would silently swallow the email rule the moment the restriction rule started matching, which reads correctly in the editor and is wrong in practice.

Each rule fires once per print, ever. A rule that checks every six hours still emails once.

Each rule says how often it runs#

A print has been waiting to be collected does not fire when something happens: there is no moment at which a print becomes three weeks old. It is a standing question, so the rule itself says how often to ask it: Check every ___ hours, right under the trigger.

This is per rule, on purpose. “Chase the owner every 12 hours” and “clear out the remains once a month” are both reasonable, and one shared schedule could express neither. It also means the answer to when will this rule run? is on the same screen as the rule, rather than on a settings page you would have to know existed.

Checking more often makes a rule act sooner. It never makes it act more than once.

When bin checks record collections#

If When a check cannot find a print is set to Assume it was collected, Pluraprint does not penalize someone merely because the collection deadline passed while the pickup record still says their print is on the shelf. They may have collected it on time, with the next check not yet completed. Overdue waiting rules act only after a bin check sees the print at or after its deadline, and they act at that scan rather than waiting for their next scheduled run. If the check finds it gone instead, the inferred collection is treated as on time unless an earlier post-deadline sighting proves otherwise.

When collections are scanned or recorded as they happen and an absent print is instead flagged as missing, the recorded state is current, so overdue rules act as soon as the deadline passes, within the hour.

Watching before it bites#

Turn on Test mode on the rule, and leave it on for a week.

A rule in test mode is evaluated normally and you can see exactly what it would have done: beside each scan during a bin check, and on the rule’s own page, but nothing is emailed and nobody’s access changes. Turn test mode off when you are happy with what you are seeing.

Test mode is per rule rather than a switch covering all of pickup, so a policy you already trust keeps working while you try a new one beside it.

You can also preview a single rule from the Automation page: against today’s data, this would email 14 people and restrict 3. Nobody should find out about a mis-set threshold from the help desk.

Approval before anything serious#

Anything that changes a person’s access, and anything that destroys their work, writes a pending approval rather than acting. Somebody confirms it from the Automation page. You can turn that off per rule once you trust it.

Undoing a restriction when the print is finally collected#

Write a second rule on A waiting print is collected that removes the role. Whether a restriction should lift when somebody eventually turns up is a decision about your policy, not about the software: the material was already used either way, so Pluraprint gives you both and does not choose.