Printboss.

we use Logicity for automating Crystal Reports.  very easy to use.  We use it to automate all the sales team reports, alerts, monthly exports...  Anything that you would manually run through Crystal.

The challenge with that DLL is that it is a datapipe meaning that Sage 300 invokes functions in that DLL to pass a dataset to Crystal. You can't automate that unless you're automating Sage.

If you're interested in using the COM API - which will allow you to do what you need - just record a macro of the process of sending a PO to PDF.  You'll have 99% of the code that you'll need. You'll be telling Sage to print the report to PDF and then you don't need to worry about the source of the data.

And just to add, for options, Visual CUT.  Underpriced for what it can do.

www.milletsoftware.com/Visual_CUT.htm

Here's some sample code that should get you moving in the right direction should you want to explore the COM API_Note - teh SQL calls are direct.  You can instead use view CS0120 (see sample below):

Private Sub cmdMakePDFs_Click()

Dim strRecords As Integer
Dim strYear As String
Dim strSQL As String
Dim strWhere As String
Dim strVendName As String
Dim strVendorID As String
Dim strRecNumber As Integer

Dim rpt As AccpacCOMAPI.AccpacReport
Set rpt = mAS.ReportSelect("APCPRST4A[APCPRST4A.RPT]", " ", " ")

Dim rptPrintSetup As AccpacCOMAPI.AccpacPrintSetup
Set rptPrintSetup = mAS.GetPrintSetup(" ", " ")

rptPrintSetup.DeviceName = ""
rptPrintSetup.OutputName = "USB001"
rptPrintSetup.Orientation = 1
rptPrintSetup.PaperSize = 1
rptPrintSetup.PaperSource = 7
rpt.PrinterSetup rptPrintSetup

'---------------------------------------------------
' Loop through table and make a pdf for each record
'---------------------------------------------------

Set cnCBINDA = New ADODB.Connection

cnCBINDA.Open strSQLConCBINDA

strYear = Me.txtYear

strSQL = "SELECT * FROM APCCS_YEAR"
strWhere = " WHERE APCCS_YEAR.CNTYEAR = " & strYear & ""

Set rsCBINDA = New ADODB.Recordset

rsCBINDA.Open strSQL & strWhere & "", cnCBINDA, adOpenKeyset, adLockReadOnly
strRecords = rsCBINDA.RecordCount

strRecNumber = 0

Do While rsCBINDA.EOF = False
strVendName = UCase(Trim(rsCBINDA.Fields("VENDNAME")))
strVendorID = Trim(rsCBINDA.Fields("VENDORID"))

strRecNumber = strRecNumber + 1

Me.Caption = "Processing " & strRecNumber & " of " & strRecords & " T4As"

'----------------------
' New
'----------------------
rpt.SetParam "YEAR", Me.txtYear ' Report parameter: 5
rpt.SetParam "FEDID", "106844053 RP0001" ' Report parameter: 5
rpt.SetParam "VENDORID", strVendorID ' Report parameter: 5

rpt.NumOfCopies = 1
rpt.Destination = AccpacCOMAPI.tagPrintDestinationEnum.PD_FILE
rpt.Format = AccpacCOMAPI.tagPrintFormatEnum.PF_PDF
rpt.PrintDir = Me.txtPath & "\" & strVendName & "_" & txtYear & ".pdf"

rpt.PrintReport

rsCBINDA.MoveNext
Loop

rsCBINDA.Close

MsgBox "T4A File creation complete", vbInformation, "Create PDF"

Me.Caption = "T4A file creation complete"

End Sub

CS0120 code:

Dim viewCSQRY2 As AccpacCOMAPI.AccpacView
Dim viewCSQRY2Fields As AccpacCOMAPI.AccpacViewFields
DBLnk.OpenView "CS0120", viewCSQRY2
Set viewCSQRY2Fields = viewCSQRY2.Fields

viewCSQRY2.Browse strSQLQuery, True
viewCSQRY2.InternalSet (256)

Do While viewCSQRY2.Fetch = True

  Do Stuff

Loop

Thanks for all your valuable answers. The issue with using software like Visual Cut or Logicity is that it is not as customizable as I would like. I need to get certain transactions with specific criteria and then use certain fields as variables to store the exported files.

For instance, exporting Purchase orders, must save to a specific folder structure and file name. The folder structure would Purchase orders\Vendor ID\PO Number.pdf

From what I've seen so far, Visual Cut and Logicity does not have this level of config (unless I've missed that part).

It looks like I will have to attempt using the COM API in conjunction with recording macros.

Thanks for the sample code. A few questions here:

1. On this line: Set rptPrintSetup = mAS.GetPrintSetup(" ", " "), where does mAS come from. I don't see any declarations in your sample. Or am I missing something?

2. In my code, AccpacCOMAPI.AccpacPrintSetup has no GetPrintSetup method. Could it be that I don't have the right version of the COMAPI?

3. I also don't see a method for ReportSelect. Maybe the same as the previous point (wrong version of COMAPI)?

Nevermind... I am supposed to open a session first. My bad. It's been a tough journey

PrintBoss handles that very gracefully.  You can even configure it to save to the logged-in user's folder.  It will sing and dance for you.

if you have the premium version of Logicity (it's not that much) you can use variables in the file names.  It really all depends on how deep you need it to go.  I use it for exporting sales people sales reports to their separate files.  again, your situation may be different.  if you can figure it out with coding then you are good to go and no additional software needed.   If you are just using it to store PO's once you send them, then maybe PrintBoss is the way to go.

The challenge with these external tools is that they aren't going to work with the datapipe reports. You need to automate Sage, first, to generate the report. You can tell Sage to create a PDF and then file that PDF as required.

Since you're also wanting to file the PDFs based on PO data then, once you have the routine working for generating the PDF for a single PO, you can write a routine that travels through the new POs and pass along the vendor and PO number to your PDF routine.