Director Setup for iSeries/AS400
Printer Configuration Setup
Director Configuration Setup
AS400 Automated Job Process
iSeries Director Job
You use the Director Toolkit to setup the automated print process. To setup the automation process you must create a configuration file that specifies which source files are picked up by eFORMz and how that source file is handled. To create a configuration file, start the Director Toolkit utility installed on Windows.
1. From the Windows Start Menu select eFORMz 10 > Management > Director > Director Toolkit. From the list of Host options select iSeries:
2. The AS400 login dialog box will appear, enter your Host IP Address or name along with User Name and Password. Then select Connect:
3. Once connected the Director Toolkit for iSeries will appear:
Printer Configuration Setup
Note: Your eFORMz Printer License Purchase Agreement determines the maximum number of printers and devices to use with eFORMz. The default is a two-printer license. Should you need to increase the number of printers an updated license is necessary. Contact Minisoft Sales at sales@minisoft.com or 800-682-0200.
First you must define print queues that the Director can use. After the Director Toolkit starts, click the Printers tab as shown below:
To configure a new print queue:
1. From the Printers configuration tab select Add.
2. The Printer Configuration dialog box appears. From Devices select Add:
Options include:
Name is a descriptive title assigned to a print queue to better identify it.
Printer language PCL, Image, Color PCL, Postscript, Zebra XML, AFPDS, ZPLII, SBPL, ESCPOS, Intermec, Toshiba, PDF.
Devices allows you to add multiple print queue to one name descriptor, for example, used with print pooling.
3. Click the ellipsis button (…) and select a print queue:
4. Your print queue is shown, click OK.
5. The selected print queue is added to the Printer Configuration window under Devices. Click OK.
6. After you add all the necessary print queues, click Save:
Director Configuration Setup
Input Directory
1. As you connect for the first time to create your Director Toolkit configuration, a blank configuration file is shown. Start your configuration file by clicking Add:
2. Select the type of directory to monitor for source print files. This directory is where your source print files or data files are pulled to merge with an eFORMz project. Available options include:
• Local directory
• Remote directory
• Local iSeries queue (AS400 only)
• Remote iSeries queue
• MQ message queue
3. The Input Queue window opens. Specify a name, select an input queue, specify other options and then click OK.
Name a descriptive title assigned to an input queue for the Director configuration to identify the selection location of print files that eFORMz processes.
Check Interval indicates the number of seconds the Director will wait before checking the input queue for new print files.
Priority sets the priority setting for the individual input queues. Each input queue executes a queue monitor in a separate thread. Control the execution priority of each thread individually based on the priority. The higher the priority (1-10) the more execution time is given to a thread in relation to other threads and processes.
Active Intervals sets timed interval checks on the Input queue. Timed intervals can be set based on the day and time of week.
4. Save your configuration file by clicking File > Save Configuration. The Save window opens. Name your configuration file and then click Save.
5. Right click the Input Directory field and select Add File Selector:
6. From the File Selection dialog box use the File drop down button to select an output print file to be merged with an eFORMz project.
NOTE: Files specified in the Files Selection are verified by eFORMz as ready for processing. Files in a writing state will not be picked up by eFORMz until the file is ready for processing.
7. Select the format type the source file is created. Options include:
Format: PCL, PDF, AFPDS, IPDS, or SCS, XML
File Disposition Options:
• Change status to “HELD”, changes the file disposition to HELD after a file has
been processed.
• Delete selected file if you wish to delete the file from the queue/directory eFORMz
is monitoring.
TIP: An asterisk (*) or question mark (?) can also be used as wild card entry in the source print file name. For example:
stmdata* stm??12* ???data
The ‘File Selection’ option also allows for multiple file selection criteria. The delimiter between each file selection can be a space, comma, plus, or minus. If the delimiter is a space, comma, or plus the next file selection goes in an ‘include’ list. If the delimiter is a minus, the next file selection goes in an ‘exclude’ list. A data file must match one of the selections in the include list and not match any of the selections in the exclude list to be processed. For example:
File select = PO* - PO1* - PO2* PO01* + PO?1* - PO2*
(Optional) Additional File Selector Options
Add additional file selectors. If using the File Age Selector, the most likely uses would be to clean up files older than a specific interval or delay processing for a specific interval in order for something else to process first. Once you have selected an Additional File Selector option, you can then set the properties for the selector using the File Selector Properties.
(Optional) Director Variable
A Director variable can be added and be accessible from a project by using an xml node of:
QMVariables/<variablename>
Example:
QMVariables/Month
If the data file is an xml file the value will come from an xml noted named:
<datafileroot>/QMVariable/<variablename>
Example:
Statements/QMVariables/Month
Variables in the Director Toolkit can be used for convenience when setting up conditions on projects. For example, let’s say you have one project that sets a global variable to be passed back to the queue monitor. Then you want to use that variable in a condition on another project to determine whether to execute that project or not. When setting up the condition within the Process with eFORMz dialog box:
The combo boxes for variables in the dialogs will be filled with the list of variables defined in the file selection. By naming all the variables in the file selection, you can just select them when setting up the project conditions, rather than typing the variable name in:
Configuring the Project Selection
1. Once a file selection has been completed, right click the file selection field and select Add Processor > eFORMz to specify a project to be merged with your file selection:
2. From the Process with eFORMz dialog box use the browse button to select the project file you would like your file selection to be merged with:
3. Once the project file has been located using the Project dialog box, click Open.
4. The project and project path will appear in the Project field. Click OK.
Feature: eFORMz Project Reference File ( .efr ) allows one to perform “tableformatted’ lookups on project names based on the name of the print file. For example:
efr text file:
<ProjectReference>
<Ref Datafile=”P2310201_*”
Project=”/minisoft/projects/sampstm.efz” />
<Ref Datafile=”P5310201_*”
Project=”/minisoft/projects/sampstm_d2.efz” />
</ProjectReference>
Toolkit Project File reference:
/minisoft/projects/projectable.efr
5. The project file selection will appear in the eFORMz Project field. Right click the eFORMz Project field and select Add Output Process. Next, select:
Print
File Output
Process w/eDIRECT or eDIRECT+
Selecting the Output Options
Allows you to select the printer you would like to print your output to. Select the browse button to select a print queue from the printer list.
File Output
Implements the Output to a File dialog box. Use the browse icon to locate the directory you would like the file output to be placed. The output file name can either match a pre-defined variable or a static naming convention. Output file name variables include:
<directory>, <datafilename>, <datafileext>, <project>
Example: /outputdirectory/<datafilename>.pdf
Creates a unique file output name every time a process is ran. The unique file name must contain at least 3 characters. For example:
statements_{system date/time stamp}.pdf
Unchecked causes the output file name to consistently remain the same for every time a process is run. For example:
invoice.pdf
Process with eDIRECT(+)
Implements the eDIRECT Process if a project file has been configured for eDIRECT. The Base Directory represents the directory where you would like your output to reside. eDIRECT by default creates sub directories under the base directory for the standard output. If you do not wish the subdirectories to be built, select Disable standard subdirectories.
NOTE: Unless disable option is checked, new sub folders are automatically created under the base directory for each eDIRECT output process:
email – /email
print – /print
fax – /fax
(Optional) Post Processing
Each output process can also have multiple post processing commands (optional):
Print Files
Copy Files
Delete Files
External Commands
Once your output types have been defined they will appear in your configuration table:
Save your Configuration
Once your configuration file is complete, save your changes by selecting File > Save Configuration.
AS400 Automated Job Process
For more information, view the following post: https://alt2.minisoft.com/support/index.php/setting-up-eformz-on-iseries/
The Director can be setup as an automated process on the AS400. The following instructions will step you through the setup process of running the Director as a job process on the AS400. To start the Director from the Director Toolkit.
1. Select the Director tab:
2. From the Director select Start.
Start Job
Submits the job. The job command is displayed in the Submit Job Command box and can be edited if needed for custom job processing.
Stop Job
Stops the selected job from the table above.
3. The Director starts and displays the active configuration file:
The Director can monitor multiple configuration files in a single job process. To add another configuration file to the job process:
1. Select the ( + ) located beside the existing configuration tab:
2. Use the browse button (…) on the Configuration file field to select another configuration file:
3. Once selected, Start the configuration:
4. Your configuration will appear under the Director tab:
If you would like multiple configuration files to begin at startup, explicitly add them to the command line in the following way:
1. From the command line screen explicitly add configurations references after “com.minisoft.Director.Director”, with no parameters after “com.minisoft.Director.Director”, the default is to load the current open configuration file:
SBMJOB CMD(QSH CMD(‘cd /minisoft ; /QOpenSys/QIBM/ProdData/JavaVM/jdk60/32bit/bin/java -Djava.awt.headless=true -Duser.dir=/minisoft -jar /minisoft/Run.jar /minisoft com.minisoft.Director.Director /minisoft/AS400.cfg /minisoft/Accounting.cfg’)) JOB(DIRECTOR) JOBD(*USRPRF)
Managing the Automated Job Process
The Director tab contains multiple levels in which each level contains a function to controls the Director as it is monitoring on the AS400:
(Level 1) Controls the Restart or Stop of a Configuration file that has been setup to monitor specific queues. If the Director is setup to run multiple configuration files, each configuration file can be restarted or stopped individually. By default, a restart would occur if changes to your configuration have occurred and you would like to have those changes implemented. Selecting Stop will cause the Director to no longer monitor the specified configuration file.
(Level 2) Controls the Stopping or Starting of a Queue that is being monitored by the configuration file. Note, a Queue can be inactive within the Configure tab but can be started or stopped from the Directors tab if wanted.
(Level 3) Controls the Director as a whole. You can Stop/Start the Director using the stop and start buttons. Once you stop the Director you will need to resubmit the job.
Reload eFORMz Configuration allows you to reload the eFORMz_cfg_User.xml if any changes were made to this file externally without having to stop and restart the service.
Reload Printers Configuration allows you to reload the Printers.xml file if changes have been made without having to stop and restart the service.
iSeries Director Job
For more information, consult the following post: iSeries Director Job