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Oracle EBS R12.1.3 Submit Request Delivery Options Button – IPP Print – 2 of 6
August 12, 2010As you can probably tell by the number of ‘parts’ to this series, I’m going to walk through the screens for this new functionality.
See the entire series here:
Part 1 – Introduction
Part 2 – IPP Print Tab
Part 3 – Email Tab
Part 4 – Fax Tab
Part 5 – FTP Tab
Part 6 – Conclusion
Part 7 – The Presentation
Part 8 – Removing the Button
Today, it’s the IPP Print tab. This tab allows users to select any number of IPP printers to print the results of the concurrent request once the data is generated.
This screen allows users to enter:
- Printer name – This is a list of values of configured IPP Printers. See configuration section below.
- Username – Some IPP printers can be setup to be user/password protected. Use this field to specify a user.
- Password – Some IPP printers can be setup to be user/password protected. Use this field to specify the password.
- Copies – The number of copies to print.
- Orientation – The orientation of the document to be printed, either Portrait or Landscape
What is IPP Print vs Regular EBS Printing functionality?
IPP stands for Internet Printing Protocol and is an open standard for printing. CUPS (Common UNIX Printing System) is the most common consumer of IPP and is an open source printing system. Printers are setup within CUPS and then printed to as normal. The ‘Regular Print’ functionality of EBS is a bit different, while it can utilize CUPS it does not typically communicate directly over IPP. EBS has traditionally used drivers and styles to setup how to print to the system print spooler. When using this new functionality your current print drivers/styles/types that are setup in EBS will not be used.
Configuration
In order to allow users to choose a printer, the printers must be setup and made available. This is done via the System Administration responsibility following the Delivery Options menu item.
To setup a printer:
1. Install CUPS
2. Setup your printers within CUPS
3. Setup your printers defined via CUPS in EBS using the above form with the following options:
- Delivery Name – User friendly name for users to select on the Delivery form.
- Delivery Type – You only have one choice, IPP Printer
- Description – User friendly description for later identification
- Host Name – Your CUPS server
- Port – The port that CUPS is listening on
- Printer Name – The name of the printer as defined in CUPS
- User Name – For use with Authentication
- Password – For use with Authentication
- Sides – Allows to choose either single side printing or duplex – IF your printer supports the option.
- Authentication – Whether or not to authenticate with the CUPS server
- Encryption – Whether or not to use SSL to communicate with the CUPS server
- Use Full URL – Whether or not to send the full URL for the HTTP request header to the CUPS server. This may or may not need to be turned on depending on how CUPS is configured
- Use Chunked Body – Whether or not to use chunked transfer encoding for the IPP message to CUPS. This may or may not need to be turned on depending on how CUPS is configured
- Support Fax – Allows use of this printer for fax jobs. We will discuss this in a later post
Once you have setup all of your printers, your users will be able to select them and print their reports!
Pros and Cons
Like anything, there are pros and cons to all new functionality. Getting the cons out of the way first, this is what I see:
1. Standard printing is still executed upon completion of the concurrent request. For years, users have been using the Upon Completion form to specify a style and printers to print the concurrent request output.
This functionality has not been changed or removed, if a user specifies a printer using the new Delivery Opts form and there is a printer defined for the report itself, the concurrent request will print to both as shown in the log below below.
+------------- 1) PRINT -------------+
Printing output file.
Request ID : 5871047
Number of copies : 1
Printer : marketing
+————————————–+
+————- 2) DELIVER ————-+
CONC-DELIV-IPP-PRINTER (PRINTER=/printers/marketing)
Beginning post-processing of request 5871047 on node WOLFMANR12 at 12-AUG-2010 06:00:31.
Post-processing of request 5871047 completed at 12-AUG-2010 06:00:43.
+————————————–+
Finished executing request completion options.
The fact that it does this opens up the following cons:
2. User Re-training – If organizations want to use this functionality, users will need to be retrained to specify printers here vs. in the Upon Completion form.
3. System Configuration – All of the print drivers, styles and types that currently define printers are no longer needed for this functionality, all of the printers will need to be setup using the new printer definition form shown above. This also has an impact on concurrent program definitions as default styles and printers can be setup on a report basis. If this is not changed and duplicate copies of the information is not desired, users will need to change the print options upon submission. Finally, users have specific printers assigned to them via the profile value “Printer”. This profile value does not translate to this new form.
4. The power of EBS Print Drivers and Styles – EBS print drivers and styles allow for some fairly complex processing and configuration including paper size selection, initialization strings, tray selection and running custom programs. This new functionality does not take any of this into account.
As far as the pros go, the only thing I was able to come up with is
1. In conjunction with the rest of the functionality the new Delivery Opts form brings (Email, Fax, FTP), it makes sense to have a user specify all of the ‘delivery’ information in one place.
I’d love to hear any comments on this new print functionality. What do people think, will you use it?
Additional Resources:
- Quick Reference Guide: Email and Fax Delivery Options in R12
- BIP in R12: Native Document Delivery vs. Advanced Options
This entry was posted in Blog, Generate Documents From My ERP and tagged BI Publisher, Oracle, Oracle EBS, R12, STR Software. Bookmark the permalink.
20 Responses to Oracle EBS R12.1.3 Submit Request Delivery Options Button – IPP Print – 2 of 6
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Brent Lowe says:
David and I had a number of conversations via email regarding his issues. It basically boiled down to being able to utilize parameter values in a RTF template when bursting. Believe it or not, this functionality is not available in BIP. I’ll create a blog post on this soon.
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Hi Brent,
For reference, this issue with (for example) parameters not available when bursting is logged as Enhancement Request (Bug) 6969869. I also mention this issue in my bursting post here:
http://garethroberts.blogspot.com/2008/03/bi-publisher-ebs-bursting-101.htmlRegards,
Gareth-
Hi Gareth, thanks for the reference. Unfortunately, while it’s similar, I think this one was a little different as it applied to some specific functionality in BIP Enterprise. In BIP-E, the parameters are not passed into the report output (XML) for either single/interactive runs or batch runs of the report, so the XML for each run was exactly the same. After talking with Oracle Support on the matter, they stated that the bursting happens in a different ‘context’, one that did not set the parameters in memory like it does for the interactive run. They say it’s an enhancement, but based on their documentation I think it’s a bug:
“You can pass runtime parameter values into your template. These can then be referenced throughout the template to support many functions……. For BI Publisher Enterprise users, all name-value pairs are passed to the template.”
But you know how that goes…
Thanks!
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Binayendu Manal says:
So, is that mean i can install CUPS at one server and refer all my instanes (DEV,QA,UAT,PROD) to the host CUPS server where i installed CUPS?
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That is a true statement. You connect to CUPS via a host name and port number making it available across your network.
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Gordon Hirs says:
I am trying to utilize this on a new install of 12.1.3, initially for a printer… but eventually for a fax server. I’m having initial difficulties setting it up.
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However, I can’t get past what is supposed to go in each field.
When I attempt to print, I get an error. (TaraPhaser is the printer name defined in Cups, and 9100 is the port for the printer there.)
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[UNEXPECTED] [46064:RT1059832] java.lang.NumberFormatException: For input string: “9100TaraPhaser”
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I’ve opened an SR with Oracle… so far it seems to be difficult routing the SR to someone who knows about the functionality.
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Any hints you may have? ie.. what’s your “filled-In” registration screen look like?
Thanks-
Brent Lowe says:
Hi Gordon, my setup looks like the following for a CUPS based printer:
host name:
Port: 631
Printer Name: printers/TaraPhaserI believe the problem is that you are not putting “printers/” in front of the actual printer name. I am also curious about the 9100 port you are using. That is typically the port that the printer listens on, are you trying to print DIRECTLY to the printer or via CUPS? If CUPS, then make sure to use the port that CUPS is listening on (by default 631).
What fax server will you be using to push your documents out? As you can probably guess, this is what we do best. Let me know if we can help.
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Thanks. yes that did it… the /printers/ and port #.
The fax server will be rightfax (client already has a license and is using for windows based programs).
We will initially be using PO faxing…but would eventually move to using this for everything.
Oracle support did come back today with the exact answer you provided.
I’m sorry I didn’t check back earlier for your answer.
Thanks again -
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Appologies – i know this isn’t related to this article – but i know you have covered Publisher work before….
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i have an issue with a BI Publisher report. I have reeorded the issue with a smaller set of data (the main report would be confusing)
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i have a parameter for a bi report – this parameter is only used in the body of the report.
i.e. the parameter is an exchange rate. (1.50) and with the report we have translaed value which = value * xrate.
This report is BURSTED by a different field (i.e. year)
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If i schedule the report normally – it works fine it takes whichever rate i have selected from the dropdown.
If i schedule the report and burst it – it completely ignores my prompt selection and users the default from the template. taken from my param@begin coding?
Any ideas?
Thanks
David