Hi,

This is a (library-related) IT question and not really a "code" question, but I'm hoping someone has a suggestion or two...

Our workflow for ILL materials, holds and transfers between our own libraries requires slips of paper.  There is no way around that as best we can imagine, and we don't want to manually generate these bits of paper all day long.  We have Alma sending email "letters" for each of the (currently) 15 different kinds and/or locations for these needs, and then we use Automatic Email Manager (https://www.automatic-email-manager.com/) to process them and print them to the appropriate receipt printer.  AEM is written/published by a very small group and is fiddly and we've had some hiccups, but it has generally worked.

Until the other day when our servers were rebooted after the July updates that fixed the "Print Nightmare" vulnerability.  Now, we just get errors.  "Normal" printing works from everywhere, but AEM can't manage it to anywhere (to any printer), and the company doesn't have a clue as to why.  I can't (and shouldn't) back out of the updates, and have updated the printer drivers to the latest release. (Some brands of printers needed changes after Microsoft's fix.)

Between Alma as a cloud service (i.e. without printing abilities) and Microsoft's "Modern Authentication" with 2-factor, and serious print spooler vulnerabilities and AEM quirkiness, I'm tired of this unreliable process.  I can't imagine we are the only library with this kind of workflow, and thus either we are doing it "wrong", or other folks are encountering this frustration too.  Thus, I am wondering what other folks are doing for this kind of thing.  Do others use AEM and are happy with it?  Are there other products out there that can run as a service (i.e. not within Outlook as a plugin)?

Thanks,
Erich



--
Erich Hammer            Head of Library Systems
[log in to unmask]         University Libraries
518-442-3891              University @ Albany

"Prayer /n/: how to do nothing and still claim you're helping."