INVITED-TRIAL GUIDE · UPDATED 28 October 2026
How label rules and approval work
Describe customer label rules in plain English, check them against examples and publish them, so each job gets its label automatically.
This guide describes the trial scope. Access and the workflow supported for your site are agreed before the trial starts.
Describe the rule in plain English
Write the requirement as you would explain it to a colleague: ‘For customer ELLAND, use their product code and label layout. Include the batch. Hold the job if either is missing.’ LabelRules proposes the rule with a plain restatement and its exact values, and you check that restatement before adopting it. You can also build or edit a rule in the editor, or in SmartFACT Automation.
What a rule can do
Each rule decides one part of a job’s label. A reviewed change can combine several of them.
- Require fields: name the values a job must have, such as a batch or purchase order, and hold it with your message when one is missing.
- Block a job: stop a job that must not print, with a reason and a message for the operator.
- Derive a value: work out a value from a fixed value or a field of the job, for the rules that follow.
- Select the template: choose the approved layout for a customer, product or destination.
- Set a template value: fill a value on the layout from a fixed value or a field of the job.
- Set the quantity: choose how many labels each unit gets.
- Route to a printer: send the job to one of your approved PrintStation printers. Routing is part of Pro.
- Require a reprint reason: ask for a reason before an exact reprint.
Check it against examples
Each rule is checked against examples written from the requirement, not from whatever the rule produces: a match, a non-match, missing data, a quantity boundary and an unrelated workflow. Nothing prints during these checks.
Review and publish the release
Before publication, the label proof of every allowed case is inspected, and each case that must be refused is checked to stop. A reviewer publishes the release. An earlier release can be restored through a reviewed rollback.
Each job runs the approved rules
Published rules apply exactly as written to each matching job, with no AI call deciding what prints. AI helps prepare the configuration: Free includes a monthly AI authoring allowance, and Pro unlimited AI-assisted authoring.
Practise with the real screens
Practise printing a job’s labels, handling uncertain output, authorising an exact reprint and drafting, checking and publishing a rule, using made-up orders and customers.
Read the guides on any device. Interactive demonstrations run on a desktop or laptop, showing the office screens or the station screens used on a handheld or scan station.