Jun 17, 2008
AFP Tech: Running From Vanilla - Segment 1 of 3
By Paul Kiel and Dave Webber, Senior Output Consultants
Welcome again to AFP Tech, where we deal with the technical and implementation aspects of AFP and the computer output environment. In our last series of articles, we presented migrating existing applications to an AFP platform and laser technology. In these articles we thought we would spend some time looking at various simple things that can be done with AFP that can bring some savings and added benefits to your print operations.
Our goal in this series of articles is to get your creative juices flowing and maybe provide a little kick start for that grey matter between your ears. What we present here may not be an exact match for your environment but you should find some useful ideas. So, onward brave reader ? hopefully, you?ll be able to solve a problem that?s been nagging your user community for long time, uncover some savings, or best of all, find a new revenue opportunity. Most of the ideas we present here has been implemented and is in production now at a customer location.
Think Green
Many organizations have some official program to become more ?green? so here are some very low cost items that can make life easier and save paper and supplies in the process. Let us share with you our experience at one InfoPrint Server customer installation where some simple changes to their system provided a green solution that?s saving them money every day.
First a little background. Within InfoPrint Server there is a data set exit that can be used to control output formatting. This particular customer was looking for three different formats:
1. A definition to turn header pages on and off
2. Command settings to turn duplex on and off
3. An exit to perform auto rotation and font selection based on line length
Header pages: Many printers at this customer were used by a small number of users. Why print a header page if the report distribution information is not required to send the report to the user? For each printer the paper and supply savings on the banner pages weren?t much. But, this customer had lots of printers that each serviced a small population of users so the aggregate savings were substantial.
Duplex: The savings here is obvious ? if you print duplex you print less physical sheets of paper (most of the time) than if you print simplex because you use both sides. Not all jobs are candidates for duplex print (so you should provide for an easy way for your user to select simplex for their jobs when needed), but having duplex the software defined default makes good business sense, and that?s exactly what this customer did.
One word of caution ? set expectations correctly when you move to duplex: Turning on duplex does not mean your paper use automatically drops by 50% for duplex jobs, the typical organization sees a 25% reduction. There are two reasons that combine to make this the case. The first is that for jobs with an odd number of pages there is no savings for the last page, it?s always printed simplex. The second is that there are lots of one-page jobs (no duplex savings), fewer two-page jobs (50% savings from duplex); even fewer three-page jobs etc? When you combine both reasons you typically end up with a 25% real world savings when you move to duplex.
Auto-rotation and font selection: We?ve just got through talking about a 25% savings with duplex. How about avoiding a 100% loss? Meditate on the following ? what if you have some output that?s 132 characters wide and you send it to a printer without rotating it or choosing the correct font? There are a couple of things that may happen:
1. The printer will clip each line so you get about 60% of the text. Worthless ? throw it out (100% loss)
2. If the data is columnar and the printer wraps each line and the output is rendered unreadable. Worthless ? throw it out (100% loss)
3. If the data wasn?t columnar it?s probably still readable but some folks are still going to throw it out and try again because it isn?t pretty enough (no lie).
What this customer did was to implement an exit that examined each print job?s line length and then automatically rotate the output when necessary and print using the appropriate font. The result was a reduction in report reprints since all data fell within the paper boundaries saving supplies costs, paper and time.
Watch for Part 2 of 3, AFP Tech: Running From Vanilla, in an upcoming issue of the OutputLinks eNews. In our next article we?ll continue our survey of idea starters for things that can be done with AFP that can bring savings and other added benefits to your print operations.
Need additional information on what you?ve just read? Got a question in some other area of AFP technical support? Do you have some AFP trick you?d like to share with the world? Is there a topic you?d like to see us cover? Just drop us a line at AFPTech@OutputLinks.com.
Running From Vanilla – Segment 2 of 3
Welcome again to AFP Tech, where we deal with the technical and implementation aspects of AFP and the computer output environment. In our last article we reviewed some green solutions we’ve been involved in, saving supplies and paper. In this article we’ll continue our survey of idea starters for things that can be done with AFP that can bring savings and other added benefits to your print operations.
Header page or crystal ball?
Let’s switch gears a little and move from saving paper to operational nightmares. In some organizations (maybe yours) the following scenario exists:
1. Userids are not based on names, which have meaning to humans, but something else like employee ID numbers, which are typically meaningless to humans
2. There are several hundred, or several thousand users, which means –
3. There are several hundred, or several thousand users that are creating output with header pages that are meaningless to the people who are supposed to deliver the output.
This is exactly the scenario our customer was facing, but the question was what to do about it. What seemed to be needed was a magic header page, one that would accept a job from user 12345 but actually print the user’s name – John Q Smith – and maybe other pertinent information so that the header page could actually be used to get the output to the user that created it, which is what a header page is for in the first place.
It turns out that this customer, like many others, is a Window Server installation. Each user has a Windows ID (their employee number) and within the Active Directory record for each userid there is all kinds of useful information, like, for instance, their name. So what if the header page somehow accessed the data in Active Directory and use that to generate the header page? For this customer Nirvana, that’s what.
As it happens, this customer is driving their data center printer with InfoPrint Manager so one of the header page programs was modified to do take the userid that came with the job, query Active Directory and pull down the user’s actual name, and replace the userid with the user name on the header page. Additionally, the user’s department number was also retrieved and added to the header page making routing and delivery of the output a much simpler task for operations personnel.
Meaningful distribution information on the report banners can make or break the operational acceptance of a printing solution. Users need their reports delivered to the correct person without delays. Simple exits like the example above can greatly improve the efficiency of output delivery to your customer or user community.
Watch for Part 3 of “AFP Tech: Running From Vanilla” in an upcoming issue of the OutputLinks eNews. In our next article we’ll continue our survey of idea starters for things that can be done with AFP that can bring savings and other added benefits to your print operations.
Need additional information on what you’ve just read? Got a question in some other area of AFP technical support? Do you have some AFP trick you’d like to share with the world? Is there a topic you’d like to see us cover? Just drop us a line at AFPTech@OutputLinks.com.
AFP Tech: Running From Vanilla – Part 3 of 3
Welcome again to AFP Tech, where we deal with the technical and implementation aspects of AFP and the computer output environment. In our last article we presented a “magic” header page that populated some of its fields with data gathered after it performed a query against Microsoft’s Active Directory. In this article we’ll continue our survey of idea starters for things that can be done with AFP that can bring savings and other added benefits to your print operations.
Pagedefs and overlays
Here are a couple of ideas for you PSF for z/OS or PSF/VSE shops. The header page subroutines on these operating systems use a pagedef to convert the header page to AFP for printing. You can cook up your own pagedef and use it instead.
Why would you even consider doing this? Well let’s say you’re a service bureau and on the output you’re delivering to your client you had a barcode on the header page with the job ID or some other appropriate piece of information. Now when your delivery person delivers the output to the client they simply scan the barcode to document that the job arrived at the client site (“Yes Mr. Customer, our records indicate that job was delivered yesterday at 10:37 AM and signed for by Elmer J. Fudd, but if you’ve misplaced it we’d be happy to reprint it for you at your contract rate”). How would you generate the barcode? Easy, modify the pagedef used for the header page to grab the appropriate data from the header and print it twice, once where it always went and then somewhere else as a barcode.
Or what about applying an overlay with your company logo and slogan (“This printout was brought to you by Super Duper Print Outsourcing – We’re so advanced even when we’re behind we’re still in front!”), or selling advertising space to local businesses that would be interested in reaching your client’s employees at a particular location (“Just present this coupon at any participating Joe’s Humungous Hamburger Haven and we’ll give you a side of cholesterol – free!”)?
Print only to internal customers? The same ideas apply, use the header pages to get the word out internally when necessary (“Don’t forget to complete your benefits enrollment by October 15th”; “Sign up early for this year’s company picnic, space is limited”; “Mark your calendars for the blood drive next Wednesday in conference room A”).
Summary
The examples presented here came to be out of creativity. Somebody was thinking outside the box (or inside the bar). In most cases there was no new hardware or software, all that was required was either employee or contractor to do the work, most of the work was minimal, and the organization as a whole reaped the benefits day after day, year after year.
Need additional information on what you’ve just read? Got a question in some other area of AFP technical support? Do you have some AFP trick you’d like to share with the world? Is there a topic you’d like to see us cover? Just drop us a line at AFPTech@OutputLinks.com.