Choosing a print MIS to pair with web-to-print

The web-to-print platform handles the customer side: storefront, designer, print-ready file output. The MIS — Management Information System — handles the production side: estimating, scheduling, work-in-progress tracking, finishing, invoicing.

For shops above a certain size, both are required. The question is which MIS, and how they integrate. This post covers the four major MIS options, what to pair them with, and when to skip MIS entirely.

Tharstern

Strong fit for: mid-to-large commercial print, packaging, and label shops in the UK, Europe, and Australasia.

Tharstern has the deepest workflow coverage of any MIS in the market. Estimating, scheduling, production tracking, JDF-based prepress, finishing, and invoicing all sit in one system. The downside is complexity — it takes time to learn, and consultancy is often required for setup.

PrintIntegrator's integration with Tharstern is via JDF for prepress and JSON-over-HTTPS for order push. We have customers running this stack at scale; the joint deployment is mature.

EFI Pace

Strong fit for: large North American commercial and packaging shops, especially those already running EFI's prepress (Fiery) or press equipment.

Pace integrates tightly with the EFI ecosystem. If you're an EFI shop on the press side, Pace makes sense on the MIS side too. The integration patterns are well-trodden.

PrintIntegrator pushes orders into Pace via the EFI integration API. Job specs, print-ready files, and customer details all flow through.

PrintIQ

Strong fit for: shops that want a modern, web-based MIS without the consultancy overhead of Tharstern.

PrintIQ is cloud-first, has a clean UI, and is faster to deploy than the legacy MIS systems. Feature coverage is slightly less than Tharstern at the deep end of the workflow, but for most shops it's more than enough.

PrintIntegrator's PrintIQ integration is via PrintIQ's REST API. Order push, job status pull, and invoice sync are all supported.

Aleyant Pressero / tFLOW

Pressero is both a web-to-print platform AND has MIS-ish features. We mention it for completeness, but if you're running PrintIntegrator you wouldn't typically also run Pressero.

tFLOW (Aleyant's prepress automation) is a separate product. We integrate with tFLOW via hot folders and JDF; useful for shops that already have tFLOW in their prepress workflow.

When to skip MIS entirely

For shops under ~$2M annual revenue, the answer is often "you don't need MIS yet." Your underlying storefront (Shopify, WooCommerce, Odoo) handles the order side; a spreadsheet or kanban board handles the production tracking; QuickBooks or Xero handles the books.

The Odoo edition of PrintIntegrator goes a step further: Odoo MRP itself is enough of an MIS for many shops. Production orders, work centers, BOMs, and scheduling all live in Odoo. You skip the separate MIS and run on the integrated stack.

The signal to add a real MIS is when production scheduling, estimating accuracy, or capacity planning become daily pain points. Below that signal, MIS is over-investment.

Integration pattern

Regardless of MIS choice, the integration pattern is the same: PrintIntegrator generates the customer order with print-ready file attached. The order pushes to the MIS via API. The MIS creates the production order, schedules the work, tracks WIP, and on completion pushes status back to PrintIntegrator. The customer sees "Shipped" in the storefront; the books reflect the invoice.