Yes one option is recognizing the SPLF header and the IBM i user.
Where my wife worked they used this function due to lots of financial
stuf on the printer with software running on a Windows server. Users
simply tapped their badge to get their output. The software releases the
spooled files for the windows user associated with that badge on that
printer. One of my customers had this same software extended to
recognize the output coming from IBM i and tie it to the windows user.
It mostly works.
The big difference in Windows and IBM i printing is when the translation
occurs. In Windows, Word or Excel or whatever translates the document to
the language of the printer at the time you press 'print'. So that
output goes to that queue. That's where it must print. That printer
device is what it's formatted to. Because of this even if you have
another identical printer you can't send the output there after the fact.
IBM i on the other hand doesn't do that work until the spooled file is
pulled from the output queue and sent to the device. So printer 1 is
busy and printer 2 is available. So long as it has the right paper in it
and can print the document (e.g. fonts, barcodes, etc) you can move it
and print it.
So for the customer the 'mostly works' part is the frustrating part
where when printer 1 is down they now need to go re-print the stuff
since it's already left IBM i and is stuck in a 'dead end' print queue
on a windows server. WHen they printed directly from IBM i they could
simply move to another printer.
So what we had proposed to them was having the badge scan sent up to IBM
i as well as to the windows software through a data queue. A simple exit
point catching that and sending it was all we needed on Windows and just
badge number and location code. Two tables would tell us who that is and
what printer they are at and the software on i would change their
reports to that queue and releases them. However the printer vendor
simply couldn't wrap their heads around how simple this was because they
couldn't understand that printing difference and that we CAN moved
spooled output between printers. And of course they wanted control. So
they went the other way and got 'most of a solution.'
- Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis
www.Frankeni.com
www.iDevCloud.com - Personal Development IBM i timeshare service.
www.iInTheCloud.com - Commercial IBM i Cloud Hosting.
On 5/3/2019 1:34 PM, Vernon Hamberg wrote:
Jim
We have Konica-Minolta Bizhubs here - networked and using central print
servers. We haven't set it up yet, but it is possible to set up aliases
in the Windows Active Directory, and the IBM i user can be recognized in
the SPLF header and all.
The K-M folks came to us with how to do this - maybe the Sharp folks
have some way?
HTH
Vern
On 5/3/2019 12:16 PM, Jim Oberholtzer wrote:
We have a need to send a login ID to a Sharp MX-N654N MFP printer.
The goal
is to have the user scan the badge to get spool files that are theirs,
and
not have print outs just stack up so anyone can grab them.
I'm not seeing a method to do that, although the SNDTCPSPLF has an
option to
send controls to the printer, so I'm wondering if that might be of
assistance.
Anyone done that before, with Sharp or any other vendor?
--
Jim Oberholtzer
Agile Technology Architects
midrange.com
