We have some shared PC terminals that are used by multiple Windows users. We have found that when User A logs into Windows, and User B later logs into Windows - while User A is still logged in to the PC in a different Windows session - User B’s printing from Epicor is then driven by User A’s printer settings.
In most cases this doesn’t cause noticeable issues, but it other cases it can.
Scenario:
User A has a specific printer set to default to double sided (e.g. for printing pick lists)
User B has the same printer set to default to single sided (e.g. for printing shipping information)
User A logs in to the PC in the morning
User B logs into the PC later in the morning in a different Windows session
When User B prints their shipping information to the printer it will default to double-sided printing.
This is being seen in the Kinetic web client. I can’t be sure if this is coming from Kinetic web itself or it if it coming from the Epicor Edge Agent. I suspect the EEA.
Has anyone else encountered this, and if so, found a good way around this?
It isn’t a complex thing for the users to deal with but it is very peculiar. I have a feeling it is related to the way that EEA works, which doesn’t seem to play nice with multiple PC sessions.
EEA does not store settings, it prints using with whatever it received from browser. So I cannot imagine how it happens.
Also starting 2024.1 you can install EEA in special mode for virtual desktop environments, and each user will have their own process.
But again, I don’t see how your problem can be caused by EEA itself…
Perhaps it isn’t the EEA directly, but since that really controls the printing at the client level for kinetic web, it makes sense that it would be inside there.
Interestingly, from a behavior perspective, if you stop the EEA for one of the 2 users logged in to the PC, then try to update or modify Epicor in some way, it prevents you from doing so with a clear notification that EEA is still running in the other user’s session, which tells me there’s some kind of session-specific awareness from the tool. This ties with the note you mentioned about the 2024.1 update allowing each user to have their own process on virtual environments… this would seem to imply that the prior version may not have individual user processes, which might explain how some of the config got stuck from the first user who spawned the process.
Note: this is not a virtual desktop, just a normal Windows PC that can by default have 2 different user login sessions.
In the virtual desktop version Kinetic tray application for each user uses its own port and if you stop it in one session, another session is totally independent and uses its own EEA on another port, and it was why this installation type was created.
Each user browser accesses its own EEA and requests to print something by providing report id and printer settings. Then EEA prints the document using settings provided.