Device management

LN reports can be printed on various types of devices, such as output files and printers. You can set up printers for LN and manage the printer environment.

Raw data is fed into LN and processed into reports, sales invoices, paychecks, and so on. Before you can print the data that LN processes, you must first ensure that your operating system supports the printers in your company.

Before LN carries out a print job, the print job is stored in a temporary file in the ${BSE_TMP} directory. The printer daemon automatically removes the print jobs after the print jobs are printed. The number of hours between handling a print request and deleting the temporary file is called delete delay time. A record is created for each print request in the Printer Queue (ttaad320) table.

The print requests are not automatically removed when the report is printed. Therefore, you must use LN ’s device management to purge the printer queue table.

Devices supported by LN

If some physical printers in your company are located in close proximity, you can group the printers in one logical printer. LN ’s printer daemon checks the paper types of the printers in the logical printer. It directs the output to the first printer in the logical printer with the paper type that is required for the print job. LN ’s device management supports an entire range of device types.

In LN, an output device can be one of these types:

  • printer

    A physical printer in a UNIX environment. The print job is sent to the temporary file on the server and queued to the selected record.

  • logical printer

    A group of physical printers in a UNIX environment. LN sends the output data to a printer in this group.

  • screen

    The output data is shown in a display browser on your monitor.

  • append file

    An attachment file in which LN stores the output of a process. If the file does not exist, the file is created automatically.

  • rewrite file

    An attachment file in which LN stores recurring data. If the file does not exist, the file is created automatically. The existing files are overwritten.

  • direct

    A physical printer in a UNIX environment. A device type that you can use if you do not want the printer daemon to handle the printing. At the Device Queue prompt, you must enter the UNIX command to direct the print job to the desired printer.

  • windows printer

    A physical printer that Microsoft Windows supports. The client sends the print job to a temporary file on the server. LN ’s print tool, BWPrint, then starts and directs the print job to the selected printer. See Windows printer devices

  • windows server printer

    A physical printer that Microsoft Windows supports. The printing is handled by a separate Windows printer server with the Infor ES Reporting Service installed. Users do not require the BWPrint software on their client PCs. See Windows printer devices.

  • External Reporting Services

    A device to print LN reports through a report design that is stored on a Microsoft Report Server. This Report Server renders the report. The destination of the report depends on the arguments filled in the Argument field in the Device Data (ttaad3100s000) session.

    See the Infor Enterprise Server Plug-in for Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Administration Guide.

In LN ’s authorization management, you can define a device preference list in a template. You can link this template to a group of users with the same role in your company.

Convert print output to other formats

You can configure a file device in such a way that the print output is converted into a special format.

To specify the conversion parameters, use these fields:

  • Device

    You can choose a unique name for a device. The name SMTP is reserved for Microsoft Outlook to send the print file directly to email. The name FAX is reserved to print directly to a FAX device.

  • 4GL program

    Depending on which print output format you want to use, you must specify the name of the conversion script. For example, ttstpconv, ttcmfprint

  • Argument

    You must use this field to specify the print output format. Examples: ascii, html, XML, rtf, XML -PDF.

    To start a program on the client PC to view the print output, certain arguments can be appended with:[Client program]. For example; ascii:excel, html:iexplore, rtf:winword.

For details on how to configure a device see the session.

Paper types and associated fonts

With LN ’s device management, you can define the paper types, fonts, and dimensions of the sheets of paper on which you can print reports. LN can generate various types of output, each of which must be printed on a specific paper type. The paper that is loaded in the physical printers must be suitable for the particular output.

A paper type indicates the characteristics of the paper on which the output can be printed. You can define specific paper types for every type of output. For example, to print paychecks, you must define the characteristics of the preprinted checks that must be loaded in the printer.

Default report settings

The report defaults define a report’s default paper type and font. These values are shown in the device selection window, which is displayed when you start the Select Device (ttstpsplopen ) session.

Device queue data

Every print request, except the request of printer type Direct, is added to the device queue. LN uses the status of the print job in the device queue to run these actions:

  • Restart the print job.
  • Preserve the print job.
  • Display the print job.

The printer queue data tells you who made the print request, the contents of the request, and the time the request was started up. The data also shows to which the print job is directed and the status of the print request.