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
[email protected]         University Libraries
518-442-3891              University @ Albany

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

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