Tracking the number of printed pages (extended mode)

IP PrintWay™ extended mode can track the number of pages that print on printers that support Hewlett Packard (HP) Printer Job Language (PJL). This function is available only for printers that use the direct-sockets printing protocol.

To track the number of printed pages, select one or both of these PJL options in the printer definition:

• Record pages printed for accounting: If this option is selected, IP PrintWay records the number of printed pages in the SMF type 6 record, in field SMF6PGE. This provides you with more accurate accounting information.
• Restart printing after last successful page: If this option is selected, IP PrintWay tells the printer to restart printing after the last page that the printer reported printed successfully. This option reduces the number of duplicate pages that print, especially when large documents are printed. This option applies when IP PrintWay restarts printing after an error occurs and when the operator releases a retained print job that has partially printed.

  If this option is not selected, IP PrintWay restarts printing from the beginning of the print job.

When you select either of these PJL options, IP PrintWay provides these additional functions:

• When the operator cancels a print job from the printer console, IP PrintWay detects that the print job has been canceled and does not retry the transmission.
• IP PrintWay waits until print jobs have finished printed before considering them successful and deleting them from the JES spool. If a failure occurs during printing, IP PrintWay retains the failed print jobs on the JES spool (if retention is requested).
• IP PrintWay writes a message with the number of pages that printed in the print job. The number of pages is the same as the number in the SMF type 6 record. The operator can use Infoprint Central to view this message in the log for the Infoprint Server print job.

Tip: If you select one of the PJL options, you might need to increase the response timeout value (Response timeout field) in the printer definition. This is because most printers respond only after the document finishes printing. Therefore, the response timeout value should be long enough to allow the largest documents to finish printing. For more information, see Handling unsuccessful data transmissions.

Performance: If you select one of the PJL options:

• Printer throughput can be slower in these situations:
  • You print more than one copy of a document.
  • You print multiple documents in one print job.
  The affect on printer throughput can vary for different printers.
• Printer throughput is not affected when you print one document at a time. That is, it takes the same amount of time to print the same one document. However, IP PrintWay writes its completion message (AOP3613I The print job was completed successfully) at a later time:
  • If you select a PJL option, IP PrintWay writes this message when the printer indicates it has finished printing the document.
  • If you do not select a PJL option, IP PrintWay writes this message when the printer indicates it has received the document in its buffer.

Job name: The job name that IP PrintWay extended mode sends to the PJL printer has this format:

AOP dsname copy timestamp

AOP

Indicates that IP PrintWay sent the file to the printer.

dsname

The z/OS® JES sysout data set name of the file. Usually this name includes system name, user ID, job name, job ID, data set ID, and the short data set name (or ?).

copy

The number of the copy. For example, 1 means the first copy.

timestamp

Date and time in the country locale. The timestamp is truncated if the full job name would exceed the 80 characters allowed in a PJL job name.

Sample job names are:

AOP SYS1.USER1.MYJOB.STC18767.D0000103.TEST 1  08/27/10 12:39:37 PM 

AOP SYS1.USER2.MYJOB.JOB18869.D0000101.? 1  08/27/10 12:44:33 PM