When you implement Auto Forms Control, there is a choice between two implementations.
The printing process on an IBM i without Auto Forms Control looks like this:
The challenge is now to squeeze Auto Forms Control into this process to merge the input spooled file created by the standard application into a merged spooled file and to ensure, that the merged spooled file is printed instead of the original spooled file.
For that there are two possibilities:
1.For each monitored output queue, you can create an additional output queue (not connected to a printer), which AFC should monitor.
2.It is possible to share a single output queue for each printer with AFC and in this way avoid the additional output queue per printer.
Most customers are using the first possibility, but to help you to decide your setup the two possibilities are compared below:
Additional output queue |
Single, shared output queue |
|
Pros |
No need to ensure, that printer writer jobs are printing only a specific form type, which mean you do not need to change the printer writers.
Input spooled files are separated from the merged spooled files.
The form type of the output spooled files is not important. |
No need to create additional output queues.
No need to change the output queue setup in your applications. |
Cons |
You need to create an extra output queue for each monitored output queue.
It might be necessary to change the output queue setup in your applications - depending on the names of the output queues used. |
You need to ensure, that only spooled files with a specific form type are printed on the output queues monitored by AFC. This can e.g. by done by changing the STPRTWTR and STRRMTWTR via the STRWTRCHK option in InterForm400.
Input spooled files are mixed with merged spooled files.
You need to consider the form types of the input spooled files and the merged spooled files.
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Setup of each implementation are described below.
