Questions on PSM notifications

ITEM: RTA000147062



Q:                                                                              
ABSTRACT:     Questions on PSM notifications                                    
SEARCH ARG:   psm notification                                                  
TOPIC THREAD: PRINT                                                             
              AFP_UTILITIES                                                     
              PSM                                                               
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I have some questions on PSM Notification. Also, can you let me know            
if any of the answers would be different if it was InfoPrint Mgr 2.1            
instead of PSM (if applicable).                                                 
                                                                                
1) The PSM presentation states that end-users can receive notification          
   from any e-mail software that supports standard UNIX(SMTP) e-mail            
   protocol. Do you know if Lotus Notes falls into this category?               
2) If as an end user I get notification back via E-Mail, is there a            
   way to determine if the user has opened that e-mail?                         
3) Are there any hooks for MQSERIES to assist with guarantee of noti-           
   fication?                                                                    
4) When notification is given back from a printer, is that determined           
   by polling or alert-driven means?                                            
5) When a SAP user submits a job, it could be a series of jobs. How             
   could you determine when the notification comes back (or if querying         
   the job) what the job really is? This is a big concern for this cus-         
   tomer in his rolling out of LARGE SAP implementation.                        
                                                                                
Thanks for your help.                                                           
A:                                                                              
I have received the following information from on of the developers             
in Boulder.  Notification in the two products is essentially identical.         
                                                                               
| (There are differences in notification in InfoPrint Manager 3.1 when          
| used with SAP R/3 release 4 and Access Method E (OMS interface); I            
| will only cover that briefly here.)                                           
                                                                                
| (Also note that InfoPrint Manager 3.1 supports SNMP.)                         
                                                                                
                                                                                
Assume that the answer applies to both unless otherwise noted:                  
                                                                                
1) Yes, Notes supports a gateway function to/from SMTP.  For example,           
   I have setup the notification-profiles on the printers I administer          
   to point to my Lotus Notes id, and I get printer notifications in            
   my Notes in-box.                                                             
2) Not via PSM/InfoPrint.  I'm not sure whether (or which) e-mail               
   products would provide such a function.                                     
3) No, there are no "hooks" for it for MQSeries.  You may wish to               
   enter a NEWREQ or REQUEST if you feel this is a product requirement          
4) Neither.  We get out printer notifications from the print backend            
   program, which is usually provided by the printer manufacturer and           
   is invoked to actually send the print data to the device.  Therefore,        
   our printer notifications always occur when printing some job to             
   the printer.                                                                 
                                                                                
Please note that the answers given are "almost" verbatim from the               
developer.  The fifth response is from the developer who works with             
SAP and PSM:                                                                    
                                                                                
5) PSM/InfoPrint 2.1 are unable to deliver print job notification               
to the SAP end user.  Actually we deliver all print job notification            
to the submitter which in the case of SAP is the spool work process            
which submits all the jobs on behalf of the users.  This is a SAP               
limitation.  There is enhancements being made in SAP R/3 release 4              
so that InfoPrint 3.1 will be able to deliver the notifications                 
to end users - these notifications will not be in the form of e-mail            
(also a SAP limitation) but PSM/InfoPrint will update the SAP                   
database directly and all job notifications will appear when the                
user views their print request.  There will also be SAP commands                
which will allow the user the query job and device status.                      
                                                                                
As far as your question concerning a job really being a series of               
jobs, could you clarify?  As far as I am aware, when a SAP print                
request is made for a SAP spool file, it comprises the job.                     
                                                                                
I'm assuming when you say a single print job can consist of multiple            
jobs that what is occurring is that the customer has batched several           
spool requests without selecting the option for "print immediate" on            
the SAP R/3 screen.  Then at a later time, the user asks to output all          
those jobs at once. We have no way to test this, but we believe that all        
of the batched jobs are sent from the SAP spool work process to the host        
spool system (like the AIX or the PSM spool) as individual jobs (since          
from reading some SAP documentation I have, it looks like the different         
requests are stored as separate sequential files in the SAP TemSe               
database).  So we believe that batched jobs will come across as separate        
jobs and that the notifications and queries will reflect that.                  
                                                                                
Thanks for using WWQ&A.                                                         
                                                                                
S e a r c h - k e y w o r d s:                                                  
psm psf/aix psf/6000 infoprint notification MQseries Lotus Notes                
messages messaging SAP sap2afp query smtp aix snmp email e-mail                


WWQA: ITEM: RTA000147062 ITEM: RTA000147062
Dated: 11/1998 Category: PSMAIX
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