DEDICATED, EFFICIENT AND SAFE BARCODING SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS
ProgressiveID have been implementing and leading the barcoding software initiative since establishing in 1999.
Over the years, retailer requirements, legislations and technology have progressed, with Progressive working in-house and with leading software companies to ensure our customers and our produce sector have the most up-to-date, efficient, intuitive and user-friendly barcode printing systems available.
Our deep-seated position in the produce industry with 20+ years of experience, as well as in-house software programmers and intimate produce-experienced staff give us an ideal position to work with customers when producing software labelling system packages for their needs.
We have yet to come across a scenario that we have not been able to produce a working solution for, and not limited to just fresh-produce! We have in-house experience with most current and historical label-printing software packages from software or hardware providers and can assist our customers with migrating processes to increase efficiency and redundancy into newer packages.
Contact Us to discuss to request a demo, or to see how ProgressiveID and our partners below can help with your labelling printing software requirements.
* As of the end of March 2023 Both Vector and Dataguard are being retired after 20+ years of service to the industry. Support for the products will be on-going for the foreseeable future however.
We will be welcoming our new specialist labelling system with Loftware early 2023.
Nicelabel, from our Partner Loftware is our next generation labelling solution; using its modern interface and built-in cloud interface it can handle anything our customers require.
Nicelabel was established in 1993 as a driver-writing house for thermal printer drivers on Windows OS, rapidly expanding into label-design and printing software through the 90’s and 00’s to become one of the largest labelling and driver software providers in the world. They offer Progressive-ID a vast portfolio of tools, knowledge and cloud-based software solutions to incorporate into our projects.
Take a look below at our solutions
Nicelabel Desktop Solutions
Nicelabel Design
Label designer makes it easy for anyone to design labels. It’s packed with graphical design features that enable users to create labels in minutes, no coding skills or training necessary.
- Create labels in minutes
- No coding or advanced computer skills needed
- Reduce cost and complexity of labels with intelligent, universal label templates
Nicelabel Print
With a similar function to Dataguard as an “all-in-one” Print Interface Nicelabel Print gives an intuitive and easy printing process without the interference of a design application.
With its adaptive field system it can adjust the inputs required based upon the type of label being printed.
- Easy step-by-step graphical interface
- Simple and flexible interactions
- No interaction with label-design system; operators can focus on printing safely and accurately.
Nicelabel Cloud
The first cloud-based labelling solution developed by Nicelabel gives customers the simplest, yet most comprehensive, cloud labelling solution on the market. It helps businesses of all sizes manage labelling, from label design to print and every step in between.
Nicelabel Cloud combines Nicelabel Design, and Nicelabel Print together on a online storage and web-interface.
- Minimal IT infrastructure required
- Secure cloud storage of labelling data
- Design and print labels from any internet-connected pc in the world.
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The safest way to label your products with total control over printed content.
No need to use separate software, DataGuard 3 prints to both on-line and off-line printers including ICE Zodiac and Markem-Imaje SmartDate coders.
Print your pack labels, tray end cards, film, picker labels, SSCC labels all from one software program.
Watch DG3 in Action
Simplicity from start to finish
With our step-by-step print process you have complete control over what can be printed; production staff simply select what needs to be printed with no access to label templates; all dates are calculated in a single-click no matter whether it is a display until, best before, a date in the barcode or what the format is; and new staff can be trained in minutes.
Say goodbye to checking spreadsheets for what the correct date code is
In recent years formatting dates on labels has become increasingly complex:
- Supermarkets such as Tesco, Sainsburys and Asda use custom fonts with Sainsburys in particular using an irregular format where the month changes between three and four characters.
- Aldi, Lidl and Netto use compound week number and day codes as well as basing their year on the ISO week date calendar and not the normal Gregorian calendar.
- Iceland and several wholesalers use Julian dates.
- Many retailers also like to print not only display until and best before dates, but also pack dates and harvest dates. Even barcodes contain dates!
With such complexity it is little wonder that printing the correct date and the correct date format often leads to mistakes. With the built-in date formatting language, DataGuard 3 can produce any possible date format no matter how complex, all while maintaining full automation.
Print preview with stock images and automatic colour codes
DataGuard shows production staff an accurate preview of the print job including the what information is going to be printed and an image of the label stock to use. This is especially useful when supermarkets use colour coded labels to indicate the depot delivery day (Sainsburys); whether a product is chilled or frozen (Co-operative); washed or unwashed (Asda); or to indicate different lines (Tesco). These colour codes are automated which means there is only a single template required.
Compatible with ICE Zodiac and Markem-Imaje SmartDate on-line coders
DataGuard 3 is compatible with both Markem-Imaje and ICE on-line coders no matter whether it is 53 mm or 107 mm, continuous or intermittent, single-lane or twin-lane. Production staff no longer have to transfer label templates using a USB memory stick, nor do they have to enter any variable data. After sending the complete print job from DataGuard 3 they simply select the print job from the job list on the control unit. And as each print job can be uniquely titled, it is possible to prepare an entire shifts print jobs all in one go.
Be-spoke User Database
Dataguard and Vector are both backed by Progressive-ID’s intuitive SKU management database. Based upon the flexible and reliable Microsoft Access environment, Dataguard data framework is designed to be implemented anywhere; from large server-based infrastructures, to smaller farm single-pc printrooms.
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Vector 6 is a professional software program for printing labels that can be used as a standalone application or be fully integrated into business process systems.
Intuitive design
A graphical WYSIWYG interface produces accurate on screen previews of the printed label, using familiar Microsoft Office style tools and layout. Vector 6 provides a full set of design tools including true type fonts, images and barcodes.
Template designs for all labels
Vector 6 allows you to build label templates to be populated with data drawn from a database meaning you can create a single label format for multiple products.
Print time controls
Maintains print time flexibility allowing the operator to manage parameters including position (horizontal and vertical), print direction, speed and temperature. This allows the software to be locked down into ‘print only’ mode, which prevents unauthorised tampering of label designs while retaining print time control over the variables that affect print quality.
Variable data
Database and Prompted Variables
Variable information can be drawn straight from a database (including multiple tables) or data can be entered by a user at print time. Date variables can be handled by native controls or through our date management module DataGuard.
Sequential Numbers and Macros
Vector 6 can handle automatic sequential numbers and has a macro variable editor for more complex calculations and functions.
Compatible with your label printers
Vector 6 is able to print to most popular label printers and in-line coders such as the ICE Zodiac and Markem SmartDate. Vector uses its own internal drivers which can avoid the need to install a separate Windows driver onto a PC. These drivers also provide more control over the printers including extra options such as multiple sensor types to help print typically problematic labels such as pre-printed, clear and wine glass tags. For printers that do not have resident drivers built into the software you can use Windows drivers.
Progressive DDO Plugin
Vector 6 includes Progressives retail DepotDateOffset plugin, this is a bespoke plugin file that extends the functions of Vector to ensure full flexibility to Retailer requirements.
Automating Dates
Printing the correct date code is often a legal requirement, and when products are incorrectly marked, the consequences can prove to be expensive with high fines being issued to the supplier. DDO works out any Display Until or Best Before dates automatically, based on the delivery date at the depot. This makes the process of correctly dating a product a simple click away.
Print Time Adjustments
Previously making adjustments such as positioning at print time, meant altering the design of the label, potentially leading to error in the next run. Print Time Adjustments adds several key controls — Test Print, Positioning, Speed and Temperature — to the print dialog enabling the user to fine tune a label, without affecting the design or data.
An added benefit of these controls, is the label design and data can be locked — preventing editing in any way — whilst still allowing the flexibility required at print time.
Critical Date Avoidance System
DDO can be configured to recognise and prevent specific dates from being printed. This is very useful as many retailers have strict conditions over what dates are allowed. For example, many supermarkets do not allow the 25th December to be a Display Until date. If and when a restricted date is input by the user DDO will prevent the date from being printed and will prompt for an alternative date.
Supermarket Formats
Vector and DDO is compatible with all date formats used by the leading supermarkets. The software even reminds the operator which colour coded box end label to load, when printing labels with date relevant colour coding.
Traditional date formats are also supported including recently introduced alpha numeric codes.
Stock Image Embedding
A great feature of DDO is the ability to embed a photographic image of the label stock, into the background of the label format. This helps ensure that correct stocks and data are selected for printing. A benefit of this feature is that any visual conflicts can be avoided, and corrected, before committing to a print run.
Bartender Software by Seagull Scientific was created in 1987 on the DOS platform to provide an easy interface to control printing of labels with barcodes from personal computers.
Building on this base, the company moved quickly into windows drivers for thermal printers and barcoding software solutions, eventually being partnered with Toshiba to supply drivers and initial software for their barcode printing hardware.
Today Bartender is available as a labelling software package for solutions requiring anything from basic WYSIWYG design and printing up to Enterprise Automation from ERP systems.
Progressive ID work with Seagull Scientific to provide solutions to thier customers via the various packages available. We recommend the Professional Edition of Bartender.
Bartender Professional Edition
Ideal for departments and small businesses, the BarTender Professional Edition includes RFID encoding and enables you to link content from databases, spreadsheets and other files along with industry-leading Designer for sophisticated label and card designs.
- A 100% WYSIWYG interface for designing your labels with context-sensitive help to provide faster set up of integrations
- Choose from over 105 1D and 2D symbologies based on over a dozen standards
- Supports over 20 major databases or data file types including MS SQL, Excel/Online, QuickBooks Online, Access, XML, JSON, CSV, and IBM DB2
- Automatically source data and images from database or external files for printing
- Write back to most SQL-based databases to record serial numbers generated by BarTender or keep track of which database records have already been printed.
- Conditional printing based on data-driven automation rules
- Print to PDF effortlessly with native PDF support
- Serialize labels by increments/decrements of 1
- Eliminate outdated or out of spec pre-printed label media
- Can be updated at any time to more advanced editions.
Progressive-ID developed Updata as a distribution platform for data within the Dataguard system for multi-site co-operatives. It consists of an upload application (Updata Server) and a download client application called UpdataX, these two work together to create an efficient compressed package for FTP uploading and unpacking for update distribution.
The system works off a version identifier encoded within the package, this allows the download application to check multiple servers, for multiple packages and identify if there is a newer version to the one it has.
This then triggers a notification and allows the user to update their data at will.
Features:
- Simple client-side user interface
- Automatic background update checking
- Simple configuration to multiple FTP servers
- Automatic label file to data-source comparison so only uploads in-use files.
- Available for most labelling system packages
- Encrypted FTP data for connections
- Detailed event logging
Sentinel is one of our latest additions to our arsenal of tools for our customers labelling requirements.
Based off of an Access framework Sentinel is a check and comparison application that uses a handheld scanner input to read, check and compare product barcodes to a linked datasource.
Designed to identify matching sets of labels before being taken out onto the line for use, Sentinel gives feedback of data on the pack label, takes this and checks to see if it matches both an end label and a product SKU. This gives line operators an extra barrier of confidence that the labels being allocated to a production match the SKU being packed, and thus reducing the chance of EPW notifications.
Watch Sentinel In Action
Features:
- Flexible datasource linking; standalone or linked.
- Pack to End Label SKU Checking
- Barcode to SKU approval
- Scan log with date stamp and comparison results
- Easy visual result confirmations
- Compatible with all retailer barcode structures, updated regularly.
- Handheld scanner controlled process (wired)
- Handles multiple SKUs if they share barcode numbers.
Pairing with Opticon, Sentinel is also complimented by a mobile version; Sentinel Mobile. This version has been built on the sturdy and highly reliable Opticon OPH1005 handheld architecture, specially developed to give simple but powerful scan-compare-check functions to operators as they move about the production floor or warehouse.
Features:
- Mobile Handheld based
- Docking station datasource updating functionality
- Rugged and reliable architecture
- Flexible datasource linking; standalone or linked.
- Result logging