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My company buys el cheapo ($) PC printers that guarantee small fortune in human effort hassles. Unfortunately, what should be a simple task to describe, can also become a novel.
Our hook-up process is 1. Handshake Printer + Host. This includesThe AS/400 does not recognize the true printer brand model combination. The configuration has to "pretend" to be some intermediate that is recognizable to the printer, the PC, and to the AS/400, that has the features & capabilities desired by the user & dept (often difficult human communicate). How to do that? We may later find something else needed, and have to return here and start over.
Do we need a "driver" for PC for combination that printer + host? We may need multiple "drivers." Where get them?Once correctly configured and connected, the 400 recognizes the printer and assigns a name like PRT53. We change that name to something like SHIPL5 or BRENPRT to indicate where it is or whose work station.
If printer hardware connected, but NOT properly configured, it also has a name, but nothing else you do downstream can get the printer to work right,
2. Research quirks of the printer that require enterprise level changes.For example, many PC printers are continuous forms pretending to single sheets, which can require humongous chunks of white space at top and bottom of forms so the printer can pretend to grab the top & bottom of each page.
Sometimes it is possible to write a PC "macro" to force the PC printer to "grow up" and not be so childish quirkish.
Some cannot handle 198 print positions wide. Some don't recognize that we use page sizes other than industry standards. Some can't handle multi-part forms.
So changes need to be made to various default settings to minimize disruptions like printing wrong fonts, losing alignment, etc., automatically placing on hold certain reports desired by the user of that printer, that IT knows full well will bomb if try to print on that printer. That way the end user has an education teaching them which reports cannot be printed on that printer, instead of continuous reports then bomb without any clues to them.
If research incomplete, you can be sending reports to that printer, nothing happening, no good clues how come.
3. Tell BPCS about this new printer ... this includesIndividual work station sides (client access) of the user each need the POP UP menu option 1 told if that person wants ALL their reports going to that printer by default ... we use a high speed printer in each department for the ALL, and only send to user PC printers by exception. Fortunately BPCS has an option on the general system menu for IT to adjust this, since some users are not equipped to manage this for themselves. We have created our own FXS menu for an array of related problem resolution.
If the printer is intended for a specific enterprise function, such as shipping documents, factory paperwork, etc. then we modify the job stream so it uses a combination of which facility, and other business rules to determine which printer to go to, irrespective of the person generating the paperwork.
Many of our users have one PC with multiple sessions, and we are in a reality where sometimes the connection to the host drops ... example, the user is on a highway, talking to the host via radio, but there is some interference. Several of those individuals have learned how to create new sessions when the old session is kind of hung due to the dropped connection. If they had their own printer, those new sessions would need similar printer configuration adjustments for each new workstation "side".
If you have got to this point, and it aint printing, check the other settings on POP UP. Perhaps the reports going to an OUTQ with same printer name, but not the OUTQ that is actually connected to that printer.
This assumes that the report that aint printing is a BPCS report, as opposed to some host test like screen print.
4. Any place else?We use some non-BPCS report generators, that do not use BPCS printer configuration rules, such as Query/400. There is a place in the user security profile where we can change what is the default printer for that person output, where BPCS rules do not supercede.
5. Sometimes some users have a printer problem, and think they know how to fix it. The user switches printers with some co-worker to try to fix the problem. Start over on both printers.
6. We also send our BPCS/400 reports to be printed by people who do not have access to BPCS or to our AS/400. For some BPCS reports on PC printers, landscape format is more readable than portrait format.
Hi all, I am working on BPCS on unix platform, I need to configure the printer at my local workstation. I checked into SYS041D "System Control Data Area" and changed the printer name but its not doing, kindly can anyone help to me please. Regards Nell
- Al Macintyre BPCS/400 Computer Janitor ... see http://radio.weblogs.com/0107846/stories/2002/11/08/bpcsDocSources.html
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