Create your print stations for cloud printing – Help Center

Print stations allow you to easily manage food and beverage dockets and receipt printing at ROLLER POS from one central place in Venue Manager.

Simply create print stations in Venue Manager to set where your dockets and/or receipts (including tickets) go each and every time a sale is made at your venue. You can even choose which stock items are sent to specific production docket printers.

For example, if an order has both coffee and burgers, you can set up a barista printer to receive coffee docket orders, and a kitchen printer to receive burger dockets. This ensures that each station receives only the items it needs to prepare at its location.

Requirements

Before you can create your print stations, there are some requirements you need to work through first.

Your venue must be using ROLLER Payments.
You must be using one of the supported Epson ePOS printer models.
You should have finished configuring your printers for cloud printing. This includes configuring your printers’ unique, static IP addresses, as you’ll need these to successfully create your print stations in Venue Manager.

Learn how to configure printers for cloud printing

Keep in mind when adding a printer in Venue Manager

Printer roles

Receipts – can include tickets if enabled for the POS device.
Dockets – typically used for production areas (eg food, drinks).
Both – a printer can be set to handle receipts, dockets or both.

Printer-to-POS relationships

Receipts – each POS device can only send receipts to one printer (1-to-1). If you try to connect a POS to more than one receipt printer, you’ll get an error.
Dockets – each POS device can send dockets to multiple printers (1-to-many). You can also choose which stock items go to each printer.

Centralized printer

You can set up a single printer to print all dockets, receipts and tickets for the venue.

Backup printers

Backup printers are only supported for docket printers.
You can add one backup level per print station.

Example: cafe setup

A cafe print station for receipts.
A hot drinks print station for drink dockets.
A hot food print station for food dockets.
The cafe printer also set as a backup for the hot drink and hot food docket printers.

Set up your print stations

Follow the steps outlined below to create each of your print stations in Venue Manager.

From Venue Manager, go to Settings > Devices.
Select Add a print station.
Complete your printer Settings.

Name

Add a unique name for your print station. This name will appear on your production dockets. If a docket is printed to a back up printer then BACKUP will be appended to the printer name.

Model

Select your printer model from the drop-down. Currently ROLLER supports four EPSON printers, and these are listed in the drop-down. Learn more

Printer IP address

Enter the printer's static IP address (if you've already configured your printers), then select Test print to check the connection with the printer.

If you haven't configured your printers yet, you can leave this field blank, continue with the setup, then enter and test this connection later.

Function

Select either Receipt printer or Production docket printer (or both).
If you’ve selected Production docket printer, it's also recommended that you set up a Backup printer for dockets.

This is an important backup in case the primary printer has problems.

Printing switches to the backup automatically, so orders are still printed, and guests get what they ordered.

For example, a cafe receipt printer can be the backup for a production area printer. You can only have one level of backup printing.
Select the POS devices you want to connect to this print station. You can select multiple POS devices. Select Apply.

Then, define which stock products will print on the production dockets sent from these POS devices.

For example, if a guest purchases a cold drink at POS, the staff member at POS may give the guest their drink right away without the need for a docket to print the order.

In this instance, you could choose all stock except cold drinks to print from the selected POS devices to the print station.
[Optional] If you’re using ROLLER’s mobile food & beverage checkouts, you can also select the food & beverage checkouts you want to connect to the print station. You can select multiple food & beverage checkouts. Select Apply.

As with your POS devices, you can also define which stock products will print on the production dockets sent from these checkouts.
Finally, select Save.

If you set the Print station in the individual stock item product, it will automatically show up in its print station in Settings > Devices. Conversely, if you set the stock items in its print station in Settings > Devices, the print station will automatically show up in the individual stock product's Print station field. Learn more

Test the connection to the printer

Once you enter the static IP address into its print station, you can run a test print to confirm that the printer is connected. You can do this at anytime to check the connection with the printer.

Next to the Printer IP address you've entered, select Test print. You will then receive one of the below messages.

Printer is ready to use: Connected
Cannot connect to printer. Check IP address.: Not connected. This error message means that the set up is not correct.
Incorrect IP address format. Please review.: Not connected. This error message means that your IP address doesn't follow the expected format

To troubleshoot error messages, refer to the guide Troubleshoot an unsuccessful test print from a print station

Once your print stations are set up, connected to the printer and ready to use, there are some other items to set up. This includes configuring your receipt templates and ticket templates.

Be sure to confirm the global POS and individual POS device settings for cloud printing. Then you can enable cloud printing at POS and go live with cloud printing at your venue.

Learn more