Spool administration:
Unlike the Output Controller (transaction SP01), in which both
users and administrators can work, Spool
Administration (transaction SPAD
All devices, servers, and so on that are involved in printing are
defined and managed in spool administration (transaction SPAD).
In the spool administration, you can perform the following tasks:
·
Setting
Other general administration
work, such as
SAP provides its own spool service and a spool database so that
users do not have to deal with operating system-specific issues.
The platform-independent SAP spool system is responsible for the
output of forms and documents. The data to be printed is first temporarily stored
(“spooled”), then formatted, and finally transferred to a host spool system to be output. You can control
all of your output from the SAP system and do not need to arrange further
processing in the host spool system.
The following are among the main tasks of the SAP spool system:
·
Processing and managing print
requests
·
Administering output devices
·
Technical mapping of the output
devices in the SAP system
An
introduction for users and administrators, in which the print process from
document to printout is explained in general. The focus of the introductory
sections is the Output Controller (transaction
SP01), which can be used by both administrators and users to manage print
requests.
·
This section and its subsections describe the access
authorizations required specifically for the spool system.
·
The various print architectures are described in this section and
its subsections, that is, the different constellations of hardware and software
components with the corresponding access methods: Each architecture also requires
a specific print method, such as:
·
Local printing: The spool server (application server with a spool
work process) and host spool system (operating system spooler) are on the same
host.
·
Remote printing: The spool server and the host spool system are on
different hosts.
·
Frontend printing: Print data are to be printed on the default
printer of the user’s PC.
·
Printing using SAP GUI for HTML
·
Output devices must be defined in the SAP system so that they can
be addressed from the SAP system.
·
You do these using device definitions with which the devices are
managed in the SAP system.
·
This link takes you to a description of these device definitions
and their printer settings.
The spool server is an SAP application server that provides
spool processing. It therefore requires at least one spool work process.
You can enter additional attributes and administration information
for spool servers.
To do this, call transaction SPAD and, on the
Devices/Severs tab page, choose the Spool
Servers pushbutton. The list of defined spool servers appears. If you
double click the relevant spool server, a window showing the attributes of the
spool server appears.
You can enter or change the following attributes in this window:
·
Server Name: You can enter a description of the spool server in the long field
of the Server Name area.
·
Server Class: Choose a suitable entry, depending on the intended use of the
server, from the input options for the server class field, such as production
printing, mass printing, and so on. The classification of the spool
server helps
you to realize your planned printing architecture, that is, to assign newly
defined output devices to the corresponding spool server. If you specify the
spool server in a device definition, the spool system compares the classification of the output
device to
the classification of the server. If they do not match, then the spool system
warns you.
·
Alternative server: You can specify a “replacement printer”, the
alternative server, for a spool server. The alternate server takes over the
processing of output requests if the original server is down or unavailable.
For more information, see Alternative
Server.
·
Allow Load Balancing: You can define whether
the output processing workload of a server may be distributed among its
alternate servers. By default, load balancing is deactivated. Instead, the
spool system ensures that output requests are printed in the order that they
are generated.
·
Logical server: You can define spool servers as logical
servers. A logical server is a name that can, in turn, stand for one or more
logical or real servers (a real spool server is a server that actually has
spool work processes and can run in the SAP System).
·
Using
logical servers, you can transport a complete printing architecture to another
system with only minimal changes. To activate printing in the target system,
you only need to edit the assignment of the logical server. You can do this
using the Mapping field. For
more information.
Device
types are explained in this section. A device type in the SAP system is the
category of printer to be addressed. The information in the device type, such
as font selection, page size, and character set selection is used to convert a document
from the internal SAP format to a device-specific, printable data stream.
A device type is distinguished
by the attributes listed below. If you change an existing device type or create
a new device type, you must change at least some of these attributes.
·
Character set: A character set specifies the codes with which characters must be
represented in the print-ready output stream (output request). This code
replaces the generic SAP characters set that are used internally by the SAP
spool system (spool request).
·
Printer driver: You can specify different
printer drivers for printing SAPscript documents and ABAP lists.
·
Print controls: Print controls represent
printer operations, such as boldface or changing the font size. These print controls
are replaced by printer-specific commands during the creation of the output
request from a spool request.
·
Formats: Formats specify the format supported by the SAP system. The
system differentiates between SAP Script formats (DINA4 and LETTER) and ABAP
list formats (X_65_132 = 65 rows/132 columns).
·
Page format: A page format is the
interface between a format and SAPscript. It specifies the paper dimensions
with which SAPScript can calculate the row and column lengths.
·
Actions: Actions are output device-specific commands that are required
for the implementation of a format. The action printer initialization, for example, can contain a
printer command with which the number of rows on a page is defined. There is a
set of actions for every format supported by a device type.
Maintain the spool database
regularly to ensure optimal performance and size. You should perform the
following tasks to maintain the spool database regularly:
·
Check the consistency of the spool database
·
Delete old spool requests
Process Flow
The figure below shows the most
important methods of maintaining the spool database:
Scheduling both deletion and
the consistency check in the background is preferable to performing these tasks
in dialog. Scheduling these tasks in the background ensures the regularity of
deletion and of consistency checks. It also eases the workload both of the
administrator and of the systems.
Every TemSe object consists of a header entry in table TST01 and the
actual object. This can be stored in the file system (for example, job logs) or
in table TST03 (for example, HR data).
There are the following TemSe objects, among others:
·
Spool requests (TemSe Name:
Spool....)
·
Job logs (TemSe Name: JOBLG...)
·
Objects from other
applications, such as Human Resources (TemSe Name: HR)
·
An object whose name begins
with KONS; this is object is constantly used by report RSPO1043 and should
never be deleted (SAP Note 98065)
Was the output request printed?
1. Call transaction SP01.
2. Enter all available information that you have
on the spool request in the selection screen.
3. The
most important status information about the spool requests means the following:
--
(no status): The spool request has not yet been sent to the output device.
Print the spool request to see if it is output normally.
Being processed:
The job is currently being formatted and/or transmitted to the host system
spooler. You can wait to see if processing finishes normally. Or you can go to
analysis procedure determining Why Output Request Was Not Processed to check
whether processing is proceeding normally. Waiting or Complete and still has
not appeared at the printer, you can go directly to the analysis procedure
Determining Why Output Request Was Not Processed. If the status is Complete,
also check the request information. To do this, select the spool request and choose.
The Output Attributes tab page shows the status of completed output requests.
If Processed… without printing is selected, the output request has not yet been
printed. Go to the error analysis procedure shown above.
If Printed with Errors:
It
is important to distinguish between minor and major problems with the
appearance of output that has actually been printed.
A
minor problem has occurred when the print out is legible and generally correct.
However, there are problems with individual characters, with alignment of text
and graphic elements, and the like. In this case, see Correcting Minor Output
Errors.
A
severe problem has occurred when a print request has been printed but is not
readable. For example: the output is in the incorrect character set (such as
Dingbats), or lines breaks and formatting are severely incorrect. In this case,
see Correcting Sever Output Errors.
To check weather spool
request generated or not:
1.
Enter all available information that you have on the spool request in
the selection screen, in particular the name of the user who generated the
spool request and the printer name (Output device).
2. If
you find the spool request, then go to the analysis procedure Determining Why
an Output Request Has Not Been Processed.
3. If
you do not find a spool request, see No Spool Request Generated: Analyzing a
Spool Dump.
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