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Hi everyone, I. HATE. PRINTERS. That being said, we have to work with them. 

 

and... Canon does not make it easy. 

Here is what I was able to find out from several places online, in order to get this "installer" to actually work. So let's jump on to our Macs and get this over with.

Downloading the "Installer"

1. Log into your Uniflow Online (web)

2. Start Printing (Side Bar)

3. Install Printer Driver > Click kDownload macOS printer driver] 

  • Navigate to Download Folder
  • Open SmartClientMac.iso > Open SmartClientMac Volume > 
  • Notice here you only have 1 file. But actually there are 4. 3 are hidden.

  • On your Keyboard us the show hidden files shortcut: Command+Shift+.(Period)

Getting Files in the Right Location

  • You will now see 3 other files. We only need the SmartClientForMac.pkg and tenantcfg.plist files.
  • Next, Go to Finder > Go > Go to Folder (Shift+Command+G)

  • Enter 'private/tmp'
  • Next create a new folder called 'uniflowclient'
  • Which is now located in private/tmp/uniflowclient

  •  Drag the two files (SmartClientForMac.pkg and tenantcfg.plist) from the mounted SmartClientMac to the private/tmp/uniflowclient folder

  • Close the SmartClientMac window.

Using Composer to Create the PKG

  • Next Open Composer
  • Drag the uniflowclient folder from finder into composer

  • Click on uniflowclient under Sources, navigate private > temp > uniflowclient to confirm files are there

Next click the ⬇️ next to Sources

Right click on Scripts > Select Add Shell Script] > Select postinstall]

Next replace all text with the following:

#!/bin/sh
## postinstall

sudo installer -pkg /tmp/uniflowclient/SmartClientforMac.pkg -target /

exit 0 ## Success
exit 1 ## Failure

Now click wBuild as PKG] in the composer toolbar. Save it to your Mac.

Boom. Chef's Kiss, You're PKG is ready to take out of the oven.

Now you can upload it to Jamf Pro, then put into a Policy to push out to your Macs. 

Hope this helps you out!

Hi! As I'm fairly new to packaging apps for MacOS, I'm struggling to accomplish repackaging the uniFLOW installer with the free tool "Packages" (lacking a license for Jamf Composer). I'd be very grateful if somebody could maybe give me some guidance on that!


Hi, If you have Jamf Pro, you should be able to use Composer. You don't need to use it in this case though because it doesn't need to be repackaged. You can use the zip file in your installation policy.

Hi! As I'm fairly new to packaging apps for MacOS, I'm struggling to accomplish repackaging the uniFLOW installer with the free tool "Packages" (lacking a license for Jamf Composer). I'd be very grateful if somebody could maybe give me some guidance on that!


Thx, but I intend to use the package with Intune. I’ve also been able to repackage the app using the free application “Packages” in the meantime.

Thx, but I intend to use the package with Intune. I’ve also been able to repackage the app using the free application “Packages” in the meantime.


I think you can still use the .zip file with a bash script to install it via Intune, but you may want to ask in an Intune-specific forum, or the Mac Admins #microsoft-intune-macos channel.

Once the client software is installed, my client is reporting that they are getting errors related to the size of the print jobs. The biggest job was only ~100 pages.

 

"The print job exceeds the maximum allowed file size. Try reducing the print job size, e.g., by printing fewer pages, and then try again".

 

They had to print it in ten jobs, which is insane. I'm wondering if anyone else has ran into this? The only thing related to file size that I can find, is the hard 100 MB limit on emailed jobs. These jobs are initiated from the Mac SecurePrint queue that the macOS uniFLOW Client installs. One of the rejected jobs was 298 MB.

 

I migrated from uniFLOW on-prem. They only started seeing these errors in uniFLOW Online.


Looks like we're on the same boat here... We're also quite annoyed about the artificial (?!) limitations imposed by uniFLOW Online. It's not even possible to properly scan a photo with more than 300dpi, although the Imagerunner Advance device would be able to achieve a much higher resolution...

Looks like we're on the same boat here... We're also quite annoyed about the artificial (?!) limitations imposed by uniFLOW Online. It's not even possible to properly scan a photo with more than 300dpi, although the Imagerunner Advance device would be able to achieve a much higher resolution...


According to NT-Ware via my client's Canon vendor, the limitation is with Azure and cannot be modified, changed, or overridden. They offered up the drag and drop method in uniFLOW Online as an alternative, but there is a 100 MB limit there as well!

 

The following is the only workaround that I could figure out. If anyone has any other options, please let me know. This is the only documentation on this that I could find, so I am adding some detail here.

 

Use Direct Secure Printing

DSP will allow you to create a print queue pointing to one of the printers configured in uniFLOW Online and make it a sort of local print server. Jobs sent to it are held on that printer until the user prints the job from any of the printers configured in Uniflow.

 

  1. In uniFLOW Online > Extensions, add "Direct Secure Print" and set it to "Enabled".
  2. Select one of the Canon printers onsite. Make sure to use a color printer that has the features that your users use. Go to the printer's http admin page.
  3. In Settings/Registration > Network Settings > Airprint Settings, click the checkbox to enable it and change the name to remove spaces and special characters.

  4. Add the print queue to the desktops with the following command (replace <name> and <ip> with your printer info from step 2):

 

lpadmin -p <Name> -D 'Large Print Jobs' -E -v ipp://<IP>:631/ipp/print -m everywhere

 


Caveats

  • Enabling DSP will make ALL jobs sent to any printer directly Secure Print enabled. If you have any workflows that require print jobs to print automatically, you cannot use this method.

  • Hard drive space allocated is finite (4 GB with 2 GB max for a retained job).

  • It may be confusing to users having another queue, so only deploy it where necessary and provide training.

  • The printer chosen in step 2 must be online and awake in order for it to work, so there are resiliency concerns.

  • Jobs do not appear in the user's print queue in uniFLOW Online, but they will show up when the user logs onto a printer.
  • You will need a large print jobs queue in each location.

  • Limited to 200 users and 2,000 jobs per device.

More info on notes and limitations can be found here:
https://www.nt-ware.com/uniflowonline/doc/eu/contexthelp/#/home/114151/en/help:~:text=Direct%20Secure%20Print-,Direct%20Secure%20Print,In%20this%20section%7C,-The%20Direct%20Secure

@andymason , the above presentations is awesome and when we try to implement this package with a post install script via pre-stage enrolment we are not getting the app installed once the enrolement is completed but we see the policy is completed. any thoughts on this ? i suspect that the POST install script does not run on the pre-stage as the mac reboots the moment it completes the enrolment.

 

@andymason , the above presentations is awesome and when we try to implement this package with a post install script via pre-stage enrolment we are not getting the app installed once the enrolement is completed but we see the policy is completed. any thoughts on this ? i suspect that the POST install script does not run on the pre-stage as the mac reboots the moment it completes the enrolment.

 


Is there anyway to hide the uniFLOW Smart Client icon from the system tray? I can't seem to find a plist where I can set this setting.

Thx, but I intend to use the package with Intune. I’ve also been able to repackage the app using the free application “Packages” in the meantime.


Can you explain how you did it with "Packages" for Intune?

For some reason this does install but it never runs the uniFlow app.. I don't see it in the system bar or in the Monitor tool. Any suggestion?

For some reason this does install but it never runs the uniFlow app.. I don't see it in the system bar or in the Monitor tool. Any suggestion?


Hey Emir,

Thanks for the time today and expressing the issues with the deployment of the macOS SmartClient.  If Jamf Now will allow me to test these deployment methods the community has created out in my lab, I'll see what I can come up with for you guys.  I'll also see what I can do in aiding our support team here at NT-ware as well.

Regards,

Jeremy

@andymason , the above presentations is awesome and when we try to implement this package with a post install script via pre-stage enrolment we are not getting the app installed once the enrolement is completed but we see the policy is completed. any thoughts on this ? i suspect that the POST install script does not run on the pre-stage as the mac reboots the moment it completes the enrolment.

 


It's probably not a good idea to install this in your prestage enrollment. Reserve that for things that you absolutely need during the initial enrollment, then put this in a policy with an 'on enrollment' trigger, or leverage DEPNotify or similar to install the software in the order you need.

Deploying uniFLOW is really a pain in the a**... I've managed to get the initial installation via Intune to show up on the devices, but no luck with later updates so far...

Deploying uniFLOW is really a pain in the a**... I've managed to get the initial installation via Intune to show up on the devices, but no luck with later updates so far...


Can you explain how you did it for Intune?

Same here, pushing the latest pkg from uniflow online server… installs ok but  disappears after restart in the menu bar. .. and if it’s not in the menu bar then it won’t send it to the printer.

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