Working with retained documents

From the Retain Window, you can start, stop, view, and delete retained documents. You can schedule documents to print at a specific time, search the document list for text, and set the document disposition. You can also modify the document attributes for routing documents to spool printers.

See also:


Enabling retained documents to print

When documents enter the Retain Window, their state is automatically set to Hold. Before you restore documents to the spool, you can enable them to print by setting the document state to Ready. The document attributes must also match a spool printer’s attributes for the document to print. Use one of these methods to set the document state to Ready.

Restoring a print job that contains multiple data sets in the Ready state may cause some of the data sets to print out of order. To avoid this, restore the job to the Spool Window in the Hold state.

Use the document list

Right-click a document or a group of selected documents, and select Ready.

Use the document menu

  1. Select the individual document or group of documents you want to start.

  2. On the menu bar, select Document | Ready.

Use the Ready button

  1. Select the document or group of documents you want to start.

  2. From the toolbar, click the Ready button.

Use the Ready Mode button

  1. Click the toolbar’s ReadyMode button. (When the button is active, it appears pressed in on the toolbar.)

  2. Click the documents you want to set to ready.

  3. When you have finished, click the ReadyMode button again to switch back to a normal pointer.

Stopping retained documents

You can prevent or stop spool documents from printing by setting the document state to Hold using one of these methods. When documents enter the Retain Window, their state is automatically set to Hold.

Use the document list

Right-click a document or a group of selected documents, and select Hold.

Use the document menu

  1. Select the individual document or group of documents you want to stop or put on hold.

  2. On the menu bar, select Document | Hold.

Use the Hold button

  1. Select the document or group of documents you want to stop or put on hold.

  2. From the toolbar, select the Hold button.

Use the Hold Mode button

  1. Click the toolbar’s HoldMode button. (When the button is active, it appears pressed in on the toolbar.)

  2. Click the documents you want to stop or put on hold.

  3. When you have finished, click the HoldMode button again to switch back to a normal pointer.

Deleting retained documents

You can delete an individual document or group of spool documents with one of these methods:

Use the document list

Right-click a document or a group of selected documents, and select Delete.

Use the document menu

  1. Select the individual document or group of documents you want to delete.

  2. On the menu bar, select Document | Delete.

Use the Delete button

  1. Select the individual document or group of documents you want to delete.

  2. From the toolbar, select the Delete button.

Use the Configuration Utility

To perform this task, you must have appropriate user access rights.

  1. Open the Configuration Utility.

  2. From the Spool and Retain tab, under Options, click Purge Files. This will remove all files from the retain folder.

Do not delete retain documents with the Windows Explorer. You must delete documents directly from the Retain Window.

Viewing retained documents

You can view the text of a retained document using one of these methods:

Use the document list

Right-click the document, and select View. The document text displays in EBCDIC, which is the default display for the viewer.

Use the document menu

  1. Select the document to view.

  2. On the menu bar, select Document | View.

Use the toolbar

To perform this task, you must have appropriate user access rights.

  1. Select the document you want to view.

  2. From the toolbar, select the View button.

The selected document displays in the Viewer utility window. For more information about the Viewer utility, select Help from the Viewer window.

Viewing retained document properties

You can view retained document properties using one of these methods.

Use the document list

  1. Right-click the document, and select Properties.

  2. Use the tree view to select the header sections and fields containing the values you want to view.

  3. When you finish viewing properties, click OK or Cancel to exit the Properties dialog box and return to the Retain Window.

Use the document menu

  1. Select the document to view.

  2. On the menu bar, select Document | Properties.

  3. Use the tree view to select the header sections and fields containing the values you want to view.

  4. When you finish viewing properties, click OK or Cancel to exit the Properties dialog box and return to the Retain Window.

Use the toolbar

  1. Select the document you want to view.

  2. From the toolbar, select the Properties button.

  3. Use the tree view to select the header sections and fields containing the values you want to view.

  4. When you finish viewing properties, click OK or Cancel to exit the Properties dialog box and return to the Retain Window.

Sending documents to another program

You can send retained documents to programs of your choice. Destination programs are stored in the SendTo folder. If the SendTo folder does not already exist, it will be automatically created when you right-click a document in the Spool Window.

You must be granted the Document - View user access right to use this option.

Once you have established destination programs, they will appear in the Retain Window's Send To list. A maximum of 20 destination programs can display in the Send To list. To set up destination programs, use one of the following methods.

To send a document to a destination program, use one of the following methods in the Retain Window. Files sent from the spool to other programs are read-only. If you want to modify and save a file, use the program's Save As option.

Modifying retained document attributes

You can edit fields in the Retain Window’s document list before you restore documents to the Spool Window. Gray columns are protected and cannot be edited. You can change values for all document attributes except for Document, Size, Date, and Time. The new attribute values are stored in the document’s spool header. Use the following methods to edit fields.

To perform this task, you must have appropriate user access rights.

Searching the retained document list

You can search the information displayed for each document listed on the Retain Window. For example, you can search for document names that end in the extension .rpt.

Complete the following steps to search for a text string.

  1. On the menu bar, select Document | Find.

  2. Enter the text to search for, and select the search Direction.

  3. Click Find Next.

Setting the retained document disposition

When the retain feature is enabled, documents are retained by default, unless you set their dispositions to Delete. Complete the following steps to change the document disposition in the Retain Window.

To perform this task, you must have appropriate user access rights.

  1. Add the Disposition (BARR_DISPOSITION) column to the Retain Window so you can easily identify each document's disposition and change the disposition on screen using the menu.

  2. Right-click the desired document, or use the Retain Window's Document menu.

  3. Select the desired command.

  4. Delete After Printing – Sets the document disposition to Delete, which will delete documents after they print.

  5. Retain After Printing – Sets the document disposition to Retain, which will retain documents after they print.

You can also change a document's disposition in these locations:

Override table
Create an override table using the NDHBNORD field in the Data Set Internal Custom Section to preset the document disposition field's value to -1 (Delete) or 0 (Retain).

Print Utility
– From the Print Utility's Manual Spooling tab, click Settings and assign a document attribute for the NDHBNORD field.

Printing a list of retained documents

You can print a list of documents in the Retain folder or write the list to a file. The name of the active Retain Window configuration file and the column headings from the Retain Window are included at the top of the listing.

To send the listing to a printer

Before you print the retain list, you can use the Retain menu’s Print Setup option to set up the printer and then use the Print Preview option to see how the listing will print.

  1. On the menu bar, select Retain | Print Spool Listing.

  2. Select a printer from the Name drop-down list.

  3. Click Properties to view or change printer properties such as paper size, paper source, page orientation, and duplex printing.

  4. Specify the Print Range. You can print the entire document list, a range of pages, or a portion of the list that you have highlighted in the Retain Window.

  5. Specify the number of Copies and whether to Collate them.

  6. Click OK to start printing.

To write the listing to a file

  1. On the menu bar, select Retain | Print Spool Listing.

  2. Under Printer, select Print to file.

  3. Click OK.

Reprinting retained documents

You can reprint documents from the Viewer utility, which you display by changing the document state.

  1. Right-click the document and select View.

  2. Set the reprint range.

When using a reprint range to print multiple copies of a document, make sure you set both the reprint starting point and reprint stopping point. If the reprint stopping point is not set, the first copy will start at the specified reprint starting point, but the remaining copies will reprint as the entire document.

  1. Click either the Reprint Now or Reprint Later button.

  2. When you are ready to print the file, set the printer state to Reprint.

  3. Make sure the document's attributes match the spool printer’s attributes.

Restoring retained documents to the Spool Window

Complete the following steps to restore a document or group of documents from the Retain Window to the Spool Window.

To perform this task, you must have appropriate user access rights.

  1. Right-click the document or group of documents, and select Ready or Hold.

When you restore the document to the Spool Window, the state selected will be the state in the Spool Window. Documents set to Ready will begin printing immediately, if their routing criteria matches that of a spool printer. Restoring a print job that contains multiple data sets in the Ready state may cause some of the data sets to print out of order. To avoid this, restore the job to the Spool Window in the Hold state.

  1. Right-click the document, and select Restore. This will restore the document to the spool.

Scheduling retained documents to print

You can schedule documents to print at a specific time. For example, you can schedule certain jobs to print on a specific day of the week, or you can schedule large jobs to print at night. Jobs become eligible to print at the specified time. They might not actually print at the exact time, depending on how many other eligible jobs are ahead of them in the queue.

  1. Select the document or group of documents you want to schedule.

  2. On the menu bar, select Document | Schedule (or right-click and select Schedule). The Schedule Print Date and Time dialog box displays.

    Schedule Print Date And Time Dialog Box

  3. Use the calendar to select the print date.

  4. In the Time box, specify the time of day (AM) or night (PM) you want the file to print.

  5. Be sure the criteria of the documents matches the criteria of a spool printer, or the documents will not print as scheduled.

  6. Set the document state to Ready so the document(s) can print as scheduled.

  7. Select the document(s), and then click the Restore button to restore the document(s) to the Spool Window.

When you schedule a document to print and set the State field to Ready, the scheduled date and time displays in the State column after the word Ready.

Resize the State column on the Retain Window so you can see the scheduled print date and time or the ellipsis (...) that indicates a scheduled date and time have been set.

Selecting documents to include in the diagnostic file

You can select documents to include in the diagnostics file, the next time you run the Diagnostics Utility.

  1. Select the documents to include in the diagnostics file.

  2. Right-click and select Add to Diagnostics or, on the menu bar, select Document | Add to Diagnostics.

A list of the documents that will be included can be viewed from \\Temp\CustomDiag.txt. When the Diagnostics Utility is used, all of the documents listed in this file will be included, assuming they still reside in the directory specified.

The Diagnostics Utility must be run on the same computer where the files reside.