Print queue
Requests come in, get checked, wait their turn, and go to a printer that can run them. The people who asked can see where their print is. You stop being the queue.
A 3D printing queue is the list of jobs waiting to print. With one printer, that's a to-do list. With a fleet, the queue also has to know which printers and materials each job needs, which jobs are still waiting for approval, and what should run next.
A shared queue replaces a separate list per machine with one line for the whole fleet. Its queue discipline sets the normal order, and anything that jumps the line does so for a recorded reason.
How it works
They upload the file from their slicer. Pluraprint reads the printer model, print time and material from it, and asks for any fields your lab requires, like a course or cost center.
Your rules decide what the job needs before it can print: a staff sign-off, a second approval for long prints, room in the person's quota. Each decision is recorded on the job.
Approved jobs wait in one line. The normal order is first come, first served; priority and deadlines move urgent work up, and staff can reorder when they need to.
When a printer is free, Pluraprint sends it the next job it can run: the right model, the right material loaded, the same site. It confirms the print actually started before calling it printing.
The requester can follow the job to done, failed or cancelled, and gets an email when it changes. A failed print can be reprinted from the same job in one click.
Review
Your rules become a checklist on every job. Reviewers see what's done and what's missing, and one click moves the job into the queue. Jobs that break a hard limit, like a print longer than your cap, never get that far.
Dispatch
Pluraprint watches the fleet. When a printer is cleared and ready, it gets the next job that fits it. If a printer goes down, its would-be work simply waits for another eligible machine. Nobody reshuffles a spreadsheet.
What's included
No spreadsheet per printer. Every approved job, in one place, in order.
Model, loaded material and site decide where a job can run.
People check their own jobs instead of asking you.
Rush jobs move up. The reason stays on the record.
Limit active jobs, hours or grams per person.
A printer that's down gets no new work. Its queue carries on elsewhere.
A failed print goes back in line without a new upload.
Bambu Lab and Formlabs printers in the same queue.
Every approval, dispatch and outcome, attached to the job.
Queue discipline
The rule that decides who goes next is called queue discipline. The best one is the one people can predict.
FAQ
What people ask before they change how their queue works.
Something else? Ask us directly.
A 3D printing queue is the list of jobs waiting to print across a group of printers. A shared queue keeps every job in one line, with its status, its requirements and the printer it ends up on, instead of a separate list for each machine.
3D print queue software collects print requests, holds them until they're approved, decides what runs next, and sends each job to a printer that can run it. It also lets the person who asked for the print see where it is without asking staff.
When a printer is free, Pluraprint picks the next approved job that fits it: the same printer model, the right material loaded, and the same site. Priority and deadlines move urgent work up. Staff can reprioritize a job or take a printer down at any time.
Yes. Everyone can see their own jobs and what state they're in: waiting for approval, queued, printing, done, failed or cancelled. They can check from any browser or a station, and they get an email when something changes.
Yes. A job can be marked as a priority or given a deadline, and rules can do this automatically, for example for a particular course or department. Staff with permission can move jobs up or down, and the change is recorded.
The failure is recorded on the job, along with the printer it ran on. The requester can be emailed, and a reprint can be started from the original job in one click, without uploading the file again. Failure rates show up in reporting.
It depends less on printer count and more on how many people you print for. If files arrive in several places, people keep asking whether their print is done, or nobody can say what happened to a failed job, a shared queue will save time even with three printers.
Tell us how prints reach you today and how you decide what runs next. We'll show you that process in Pluraprint.