Adjust output profiles

By default, Document Output uses email to send documents from Business Central. However, customers and vendors often have different requests for delivery methods, and increasingly companies need to meet new legal requirements for sending and receiving electronic documents (e-Documents), such as e-Invoices.

Output profiles specify how customers and vendors receive documents from you. You can select from a preset list of output profiles or create new custom output profiles. You can send documents in the following ways, or ín a combination of these.

• As emails with attached PDF documents
• Printed and sent as physical documents
• As e-Documents sent via a secure file transfer network such as Peppol

You can also set up an output profile to skip sending through Document Output for specific email templates or for all document types.

Scenario

In the scenario video, Ester has been asked to make three changes to delivery methods.

She needs to work on these tasks:

• Set up a customer so that sales invoices and credit memos are sent as e-documents.
• Set up a group of customers with an output profile that both prints and emails PDF reports.
• Disable Document Output for sending purchase orders to one vendor, who requires these documents sent through a different proprietary file transfer system.

Adjust a customer or vendor output profile

In new installations of Document Output, customers and vendors will have the default output profile that sends by email only. You can change this delivery method on the customer or vendor card, using the Output Profile setting in the Document Output FactBox.

Use the Select from full list action to see an overview of the current options and select an existing alternative. However, for full control of the options, you can use the search function to navigate to the Output Profiles page.

Examples of output profiles

In the Output Profiles list, the column options allow you to have a large amount of control over what is sent and how it's sent to each customer or vendor.

For example, the EMAIL-PRINT profile code could be used for a customer who wants to receive an emailed PDF but also wants a physical copy of each document printed and sent by mail. These details are specified with:

• PDF selected in the Email column
• A check mark in the Print column

In another example, the PEPPOLBIS3 profile code is set up to differentiate the method of sending, depending on the email template. This is common for file transfer network output profiles such as PEPPOLBIS3 and XRECHNUNG2, which handle a small range of document types sent as e-Documents. Therefore, the output profile needs to also specify how to handle the other types of documents that con't be sent as e-Documents.

For PEPPOLBIS3 there is a top line set up as the main line for the profile. This lines has no email template specified in the Template field. All email templates that are not specified in the other lines will apply the output profile for this line, in this case PDF by email only.

The PEPPOLBIS3 profile has four more lines listed under the main line. These lines specify:

• Different email templates that should be sent as PDF and XML (e-document)
• The relevant e-Document setup code for the Peppol network
• Options such as whether to embed documents within the e-Document. You can choose to embed the original Business Central report, and/or any files that are attached to the lines in the report.

Create a new output profile

To create a new output profile with different outputs for different email templates, you need to create at least two output profile lines. The first line creates the same output for most of your email templates. The other lines specify the email templates that have different outputs.

To create the first line, select the New action, and then:

• at Profile Code, enter a unique identifier. In the example image, PR-STATE_EMAIL-OTHER is used.
• in the Description column, enter text for your own reference.
• in the Template column leave the field blank, because this is the setup for the majority of email templates. Document Output automatically bolds the profile code for this line to show that it's the main line for this output profile.
• in the other columns, specify the output setup for the majority of your email templates. In the example, PDF is selected in the Email column, and the Print column has no check mark. So unless otherwise specified, email templates will have a PDF email output.

Create a second line with the same profile code, but:

• in the Template column, specify the exception email template. In the example, Statement is specified in the template column.
• in the other columns, specify how only this email template should have output. In the example, the setup is that statements will be printed but email will be skipped.

If there are other email templates that need differentiated output, continue to create extra output profile lines with the same Profile Code.

Skip sending all documents

In some cases, a customer or vendor has requirements that mean no documents should be sent to them through Document Output. For example, a vendor requires documents to be sent with a proprietary format through a third-party operator other than the Continia Delivery Network. In these cases, you can create an output profile code which skips email and leaves all other methods unchecked.

Alternatively, if you get a large amount of new customers or vendors who should skip sending through Document Output, you can enable the setting for Skip Email if No Output Profile in the Document Output Setup page. Then leave the output profile blank on the vendor or customer cards.

Update a group of customers

If a group of your customers need the same output profile, you can set this up quickly in one customer update.

• From the main Document Output menu, use the Customer action, and then Customer Setup List.
• Use the Update Customers action to select the output profile.
• Select the Output Profile.
• Use the filter the list to quickly apply a setup to a selected group, for example by Country/Region Code.
• Select Change Existing setup if you want to override existing customer output profiles. Otherwise only customers without an output profile set up will get this update.

You can also override existing customer output profiles with the option to Change Existing setup. When change existing setup is used, you can still change the output profile for individual customers as needed.

Other resources

More learning resources for this topic include:

• Output Profiles (Continia Docs article)
• Setting up the Customer Card (Solution Demo video)
• Electronic invoicing with Document Output (Continia Docs article)