Strangely enough its just a property:
https://knowledge.ni.com/KnowledgeArticleDetails?id=kA00Z0000004Aa2SAE
I dont know if we are thinking of the same thing, but what came to mind with software triggering was this procedure:
Change trigger mode on camera to software trigger
Read buffer #
Set exposure time
read back exposure time (poll until = new value)
fire software trigger
ignore that new image
turn trigger mode back to hardware triggering (or free run if thats what you use).
Seems like this would be a pretty fool-proof way of ensuring the change? If it works you can then start removing things (for ex I think 5/6 are redundant since you paused triggering in 1)