MyOrderDesk - Customer's Canvas Preflight & Proofing Integration Setup Follow
About Customer's Canvas Preflight Tool
Customer’s Canvas Preflight tool is specially developed to help streamline the pre-print validation process. It saves both you and your customers time by performing automatic and accurate checks of the designs uploaded to your site by end-users, ensuring that they meet specific requirements.
- Built to reduce order processing time
The preflight software automatically identifies problems in uploaded designs that could affect the quality of the final product and encourages users to fix them before submitting their order. - Turn well-designed files into well-printed products
Customer’s Canvas Preflight allows you to set up your own checklist for pre-flighting clients’ files and ensuring they fit the technical requirements of your production process. - Fix issues on the fly
Your customers no longer need to waste time emailing back and forth with your support staff - they can correct design issues right on your website and submit their print-ready files on the first attempt.
About the Integration with MyOrderDesk
- The API connects to your MyOrderDesk sites and enables automatic preflight validation on the products you choose to run the tool on.
- Your customer will get feedback with either Errors (can’t continue), or Warnings (can continue), and when possible, will be able to have the Preflight Tool correct problems for them.
- You choose what to check and page layout requirements. Options are Page Size, Bleed area, Safe Zone, Minimum Text Size, Resolution, and Color Space. If a problem exists with the file or images in that file meeting the color space requirements, the preflight tool will fix those problems when allowed.
- You indicate if problems found can still be submitted with the job, or if you are rejecting the file until the customer can resolve the problem and re-upload after the problem(s) are addressed.
- When the order is placed, MyOrderDesk will make available in the Order History, the original file the customer uploaded, the corrected file, and a report of other errors and/or warnings that still exist in the file that could not be fixed.
- There is a page limit of 200 pages set in the integration. Having the tool check for a document with a large number of pages takes a bit of time, especially if the file needs corrections made by the preflight tool. It is advised to set a rule in the form to bypass the Preflight tool for documents where the customer indicates their file is more than 200 pages. Our support and onboarding staff can help you set this up if need be.
To Begin
You do not need to create an account with Customer's Canvas in order to use the Preflight Tool. Print Reach is a reseller of this solution so this part will be taken care of for you.
You will need to add the Preflight Tool to your MyOrderDesk account. Please contact our Servicing team, or your Account Manager to get started with this integration.
Creating Profiles
The preflight tool needs to know what to expect when checking the customer's files. In order to do this, you will create profiles that will be referenced in the File Upload button you add to your Product Forms. Depending on the complexity of the form, you might have one profile or many profiles for any particular product. For this example, let's start out with a simple product: An 8.5 x 11 Color Flyer with Bleed.
Go to Admin > Services > Customer's Canvas Preflight. Select "New."
A Popup Modal window will launch where you will set the parameters for preflight to use when checking files uploaded by your customer to this product.
Profile Name - Give your profile a name that will be easy for you to recognize exactly what it is for. Example: 8.5 x 11 Color Flyers with Bleed.
Allowed File Types - Preflight will save your final file as a PDF, but you can allow your customer to upload a variety of file types to be reviewed, you decide which file types are allowed. File types supported by Customer's Canvas Preflight are .pdf, .tif, .jpeg, .jpg, .gif, .png, .psd, .ai.
Enable Color Check - If you want the Preflight tool to check that the file is in the correct color space, select "Yes."
Allowed Color Spaces - For this example, we are building a Flyer in full color, so we would select CMYK and/or RGB. We also can decide how we want the tool to handle files that are not in the color space you are expecting.
You can either Warn + Fix and have the preflight tool fix the color, Warn Only but still allow them to submit the file, or Deny. If you Deny, the customer will not be able to continue ordering the product until they fix the file and re-upload it.
Fix Color Space - If you select the option to Warn + Fix the file, you will receive an additional prompt that will ask you what color space to use to fix the file. So if your customer uploads a file that is in RGB, but they are ordering a BW flyer product, you would select Grayscale. The Preflight Tool will change the document to be in Grayscale.
Enable Resolution Check - Select "Yes" if you would like the document to check that all pages/images are a certain resolution.
Notes: At this time the tool does not indicate exactly what image on that page is low resolution. It will only indicate that on a particular page, there is a low-resolution warning. Also, if you do not enable this check, and set the minimum DPI, the end user/customer will see wording on the Preflight page that the minimum resolution is 0 instead of just bypassing the check all together. Both of these items are being worked on by Customer's Canvas.
Minimum DPI - Enter the minimum DPI you will allow.
Warn Only or Deny - Indicate if you want to just Warn the customer that their page is low resolution, or if you want to Deny them from uploading this file due to the fact that the page(s) are below the minimum DPI you set.
Enable Text Size Check - Select "Yes" if you would like the Preflight Tool to make sure all text on the page(s) is a certain point size.
Minimum Text Size - Indicate what you would like the minimum text size to be throughout the document.
Warn Only or Deny - Indicate if you want to just Warn the customer that the point size is lower than expected, or if you want to Deny them from uploading the file due to the fact that the page(s) contain text lower than your limit.
Document Size and Indicator Lines - The next section determines how the Preflight Tool will display their design file to the customer. You may enter inches, centimeters, millimeters, or points.
Trim Width & Trim Height - These fields are required. Enter the dimensions for the size of the file you are expecting your customer to upload. The margins will be indicated with a blue line.
Bleed - If you would like to show a bleed, indicate how far out from the margin of the page you would like Preflight to set a red line indicating the bleed area.
Safe Zone - Indicate how far in from the document size you would like Preflight to set a green line indicating the safe area. You will need to enter something in this field, otherwise, it will default to 0 and your Safety line (green), will appear on top of the Trim line (blue) and could cause confusion to your customer.
Output Resolution - After the preflight process is complete, the file will be saved as a PDF and you can indicate what you want the resolution to be by entering it here.
Note to Display to Customer on Approval Page - There are two steps in the Preflight process. The first is to show the customer their file with any warnings or errors found, and then after they have addressed any issues, they will finish up on a Preview Page. You can add a note indicating that once they select the Finish button, and completing the order, they are approving that the file is ready to print. See the image below for an example of what you might want to say.
See below for my completed Profile for this example:
Adding Preflight to Your Form
This documentation assumes you know how to create a Form in your MyOrderDesk site, and will focus only on what is needed to add a Preflight Upload Button to your form that ties to the Profile(s) you created.
- Navigate to Admin > Tools > Add/Edit Order Forms.
- Select or Create a New Form you want to run the Preflight Tool on.
- Drag over the new File Upload Button called "Preflight Tool."
- Enter a Variable Name that you use for your uploads, along with the Field Caption. We suggest you add some instructions to this prompt, such as "Please upload your 8.5 x 11 Color PDF File."
- Select the Preflight Profile you created that you want to be used for this product from the dropdown menu seen in the screenshot below.
- Save and Test.
Viewing the File in the Preflight Tool
When your customer selects the Upload File Button, they will be brought to a page where they will be asked to upload their file. This page will list all file types that you have allowed in your Profile.
Note: If you are iFraming MOD into another site, the window for the Preflight Tool might be smaller than a site not using iFrames. Your customer should be able to enlarge the view by selecting the "Fullscreen" icon at the top/right side of the page. It is important that you are using the most up-to-date version of the MyOrderDesk Plugin to ensure the Fullscreen functionality works.
Once they either Drag and drop, or upload their file, the tool will inspect their file and display it with any errors or warnings it found. If you've allowed the tool to fix any color space issues, they will also be given the opportunity to fix them.
After making any adjustments to their file that are needed, they select "Next," and are taken to the final page where they will approve their file in a view that trims to the document margins.
If all looks good, they will select "Finish," and be brought back to the Form page where they can add the item to their shopping cart.
When the order is placed, three files will be added to the Job: The original file the customer uploaded, the corrected file saved as a PDF at the resolution you specified in the Profile and a Report that lists out any errors or warnings that were in the file and not corrected.
Setting up a More Complicated Form
In our first example, we set up a simple product where the file size and color were already determined. What if you have a product that has several size options, color options, etc. that determine what rules you want the Preflight Tool to check for? In this scenario, you will first need to set up a Profile for each combination.
As example:
- 8.5 x 11 Grayscale
- 8.5 x 11 Color
- 11 x 17 Grayscale
- 11 x 17 Color
You will also need to add a separate Preflight Button in your Form that links to each of the different Profiles you create. In order for this to work, we will also be using SmartForms.
Note: This document will show examples, but it does not explain how to write Field Values, or how to create SmartForm Rules. You can reference our help articles if you are unfamiliar with this process. The help articles can be found by selecting the "?" icon at the end of each row as seen below:
Step 1. Create your Profiles
In the screenshot below you can see I've created 4 new Profiles, one for each combination of size and color that the customer will select in the Form.
Step 2. Create the Form with your Preflight Profiles
My next step will be to create my Form. This time, instead of having just one Preflight Tool Button for the upload, we need to create four, one for each Profile we set up. See below.
Step 3. Create the Fields for the Two Variables
Create the fields for our two variables: Color Choice and File Size. Assign a number to each option that will be used in our QuickPrice Formula in our next step. See below.
Step 4. Create the Fields for the Two Variables
Using a QuickPrice Formula Field, create a PreflightTemplateCalculator Variable to use with the SmartForm as seen below. You will number each of the combinations (1, 2, 3, and 4). (The name does not matter.) In essence, we are creating a test to find out what selections the customer has made and relating those choices to a single number that will be used in the next step. In "Plain English" this is what we are accomplishing.
If Size is 8.5 x 11 (1) and Color is Grayscale (1) Then assign the Value 1
If Size is 8.5 x 11 (1) and Color is Color (2) Then assign the Value 3
If Size is 11 x 17 (2) and Color is Grayscale (1) Then assign the Value 2
If Size is 11 x 17 (1) and Color is Color (2) Then assign the Value 4
If there are no matches Then assign the Value 0
Step 5. Create the SmartForm
Using the "PreflightTemplateCalculator" as the Trigger Field, build each rule using the number you assigned each combination along with the matching Field Group. The general sentiment is the numbers used in step 4 correlate to an upload field that is being shown based on the customer's options. Any fields that are not "Shown" are "Hidden" which is why this only presents one upload field to the customer. Below is a screenshot showing an example.
When following these instructions, your customer will make selections for Color and Size and once this is done, the MOD Form will know which Upload Button to present to the customer. That specific Button will know which Profile to look at and which Rules to apply to the Preflight process.
Implementing Page Count into an Order Form
Once the Pre-Flight Fields have been added to an Order Form, a page count feature can be included as well. A Qwik-Price Formula will be needed to make this functionality work. Once the Qwik-Price has been added, insert the following into the field "{udf_Pre-FlightFieldName::recordcount}". The uploaded document will have its pages counted and will display in the Qwik-Price Formula field.
If multiple Pre-Flight buttons are being used, add them all up in the single Qwik-Price Formula field
"{udf_Pre-FlightFieldName1::recordcount}+{udf_Pre-FlightFieldName2::recordcount}". This will accommodate for example, different sized Pre-Flight upload profiles and give a page count regardless of which button the end user used to upload with.
In the above example, a 2 page document was uploaded.
The red text showcases the native page count for the file being used.
The blue text is a Qwik-Price Formula using the "{udf_Pre-FlightFieldName::recordcount}". This is showing the number of pages in the document.
The green text is taking the blue number and multiplying it with some pricing to give a total. In this case, it is (blue text)*$5.00
Once finished, the end user will have a button they can use to upload their document. Once uploaded, the end user will be able to see (or not see if the "hidden" checkbox is checked) the number of pages in their document and see the price that multiplies the pages by the per-page pricing.