Print Labels from Business Central

Shipping and barcode labels from Dynamics 365 Business Central: Labelixa reads your posted sales shipments through the standard API, fills a ZPL template, shows the label on screen and prints it through the DirectPrint agent.

The problem

Business Central records the shipment, but the thermal label is printed elsewhere: report layouts do not emit ZPL, a partner extension is expensive to commission, and whether the template is right is only answered once it comes off the printer. What is missing is a layer that reads the fields, shows the label on screen and hands it to the printer.

What does Labelixa do?

Connect with an Entra identity

You create an app registration (client credentials) in your own tenant and enter tenant, environment and company IDs in the Labelixa connector settings. The client secret is stored encrypted and never shown on any screen.

Map shipment fields

Fields of the `salesShipments` record — ship-to name, address, city, postal code, document number — are mapped to label variables; only mapped fields are requested.

Preview on screen

The ZPL built from the mapped data is rendered at real size and the barcode is verified by actually decoding it. A wrong field is visible before any media is consumed.

Print through DirectPrint

The finished label goes to a Zebra-class printer on the network or USB through the DirectPrint agent; job history stays in the panel.

Example label

This image was produced from the ZPL beside it with the Labelixa engine.

Try your own ZPL code →

^XA
^FO25,20^A0N,26,24^FDSHIP TO^FS
^FO25,52^A0N,22,20^FDTrey Research^FS
^FO25,80^A0N,20,18^FD153 Thomas Drive^FS
^FO25,106^A0N,20,18^FDChicago 61236^FS
^BY2,3,80^FO25,140^BCN,80,Y,N,N^FDS-SHPT102001^FS
^FO470,20^BXN,5,200^FDS-SHPT102001|Trey Research^FS
^XZ

Commonly used symbologies

How does printing labels from Business Central work?

1. Create an app registration in Entra ID: Business Central API permission (Application, API.ReadWrite.All) with admin consent; add the client ID on the Microsoft Entra Applications card in BC.
2. Create a connector setting in Labelixa: tenant, environment, company ID, resource (salesShipments) and the mapping of shipment fields to the variables of your label template. 4×6 shipping label template · all label templates
3. Run it: shipment rows come back; render the first row with your template and check the label and its barcode on screen. ZPL viewer
4. Install the DirectPrint agent, map the printer, send the job. Download the DirectPrint agent

Measured limits of the integration

What is read?

Shipment headers are read through the standard Business Central API v2.0 (`companies/{id}/salesShipments`); the query requests only the mapped fields. Measured against a real BC environment: a 42-field record, pages of 200 records.

No write-back

The integration only reads. A "label printed" status is not written to Business Central; that needs a small AL extension on the customer side and is shaped together with the pilot. Nothing that does not work is promised.

Paging and limits

One call processes at most 200 records and reports whether more exist; fetching a single shipment by filter (document number) is the typical use. The response cap is 1 MB; exceeding it returns a clear error.

Security

The client secret lives in an AES-256-GCM encrypted column and never reaches a read surface; outbound requests pass scheme, IP and redirect checks; tokens and customer data are not logged.

Go to the API reference →

Frequently asked questions