Printing Workflow

A printing mission is actually a bundle. It can contain reports for one or many users. The workflow of a printing mission consists of the following stages:

• The Control-V New Day procedure analyzes the basic scheduling criteria of the printing missions and decides which printing missions should be executed on the given day. A different printing or report delivery plan can be structured for every day – regular working day, end of the month, weekend, and so on. The missions are placed in the Active Missions file.
• The monitor analyzes the mission’s runtime scheduling criteria (prerequisite conditions, time constraints, priority, and so on). If all scheduling criteria are met, the printing mission starts executing.
• Control-V initiates a printing mission only if a printer is available to the Control-D monitor. The printing mission parameters contain the list of printers on which the bundle can be printed (for example, it is impossible to print a carbon paper report on a laser printer). Control-V selects one of the available printers. The printer is selected taking into account the printing priorities and speed of each printer. Control-V performs workload balancing between the printers to select the fastest printing order to achieve printing priorities.

  After a printer has been selected for the printing mission, a printing plan is prepared:

  • The printing parameters specify the users who should receive the reports. The Active User Report List file is scanned for all scheduled by as yet unprinted reports of the selected user (and that user’s descendants in the Recipient Tree). The copy count and printing destination are taken from the user records in the Active User Report List file.
  • The specific pages of reports to be printed are sorted according to the specified printing mission sort parameters.
• The printing plan is saved on a file (to allow for recovery and checkpointing) and can be viewed and controlled online.
• Control is passed to the Printers Control monitor to execute the printing plan. The Printers Control monitor sends to the spool a calculated amount of lines (for example, 10,000 at a time). The monitor periodically checks the status of the printing lines. When the printer is about to finish printing the lines, additional lines are placed on the spool. With this method, the spool contains the minimum number of lines required to keep the printer busy.
  • If new printing characteristics need to be used, the Printers Control monitor closes the currently printing "chunk" of lines and opens a new one with the new characteristics. Therefore, it is possible to mix different printing characteristics in the same bundle.
  • If the user has specified a special printing ruler for a report, the report is edited accordingly.

  The Printers Control monitor passes control to various exits which can change the printed lines, edit banner pages, print the bundle report index, and so on. Sample exits are supplied in the IOA SAMPEXIT library.

  When printing in LINE MODE or PAGE MODE on IBM AFP laser printers, special parameters and special Control-V supplied user exits are invoked to support the IBM PSF. These exits can be tailored for local use.

  When printing on a Xerox 8700/9700 printer, special Control-V supplied user exits are invoked to support DJDE parameters.

  The printing process can create System Management Facility (SMF) records which allow billing and charge back at the job level or at the report recipient level.

• When printing is finished, control is passed to the Control-D monitor. The monitor then adds and/or deletes requested prerequisite conditions and uses the Shout facility to notify appropriate personnel.

A printing mission can be scheduled and processed as a batch job, similar to a backup mission or restore mission. Batch printing jobs are executed via skeleton JCL kept as a library member. Batch printing can utilize or ignore the regular chunking mechanism. A time-out mechanism can be used to terminate the printing mission if it does not begin on time.