Get Job Data

Creating an interactive process for incoming print jobs using OL Connect Send requires that the relevant information about the respective job is available and can be used in Workflow. Job Information retrieval is made easy with the Get Job Data plugin.

The plugin appears in the Plug-in Bar of Workflow under OL Connect Send.
Typically, it is used in the OL Connect Send interaction process, just after the initial HTTP Server Input plugin.

The Get Job Data plugin gets all relevant information for the dedicated print job using the Unique Job ID. Whenever an OL Connect Send Printer Driver is sending a print job to the OL Connect Send Job Processor plugin, it creates a unique ID string composed from 10 upper- and lowercase letters and digits e.g. “ri0zZdluLp”. This Unique Job ID is used in any communication between the Printer Driver and the plugin and is the leading identification element for this particular job. All job related information is stored in the underlying database and linked together by this Unique Job ID.

Properties

General tab

Three different settings affect the general behavior of the plugin:

• Where to get the Print Job ID.
• When to continue with the next step.
• Where to store the job information details.

Select Job ID Source

The plugin can be used in a generic way. Whenever information about a specific print job is required, it can be retrieved as long as the related job ID is known. However, the plugin has been implemented in a way that it can also be used very easily in the OL Connect Send interaction process. It can get the related job ID from the incoming data of the HTTP Server Input plugin.

• Read from HTTP Input data: When this option is selected, the plugin analyzes the incoming data and if it can find the Job ID at the expected location, it uses it for further processing.
• Read from Variable: When selecting this option, any existing Workflow variable can be chosen via the drop-down field. In this case, the plugin reads the Job ID from that variable.

Select Returning Type

Depending on this setting the plugin gets status information about the job before it has arrived or it gets information after the job has been completely received.

• Immediately: By choosing this option, the Get Job Data plugin will return as quickly as it can, providing it can find a matching Job ID in the database. It is important to know that it will wait until any information about the job is available. If no matching Job ID is found, the plugin will wait for 5 seconds and then raise an error, which can be acted upon via the On Error tab settings.
  When selecting this option, the Status ID information has to be checked. A Status ID value of 1 or 6 indicates a fully processed job. Any value between 2 and 5 (inclusive) means that the job is still in progress.
• When Job is Processed: When this option is selected, the plugin will query the database until the Status ID value is 1 or 6. If the status does not become 1 or 6 within the time defined via the Timeout (sec) input field, the plugin will raise an error.

Select Output Type

• XML Data to Workflow: This will result in an XML file containing all job related data and becoming the new Workflow job file. In this case, the incoming data file of the HTTP Server Input plugin is overwritten and lost.
• Write to Variables: This allows print job information to be stored in Workflow variables by using a simple drop-down list. In this case, the HTTP Server Input data will be kept as Workflow job file. If the same Workflow variable is assigned more than once, the plugin will give a warning and will not close until the issue is fixed.

Returned information

For each job received by the OL Connect Send Job Processor plugin the following values will be available.

• Job UID: This is the 10 (ten) character long Unique Job Identifier string.
• Date/Time stamp: This is the time when the matching job was initially created in the database. It is stored in UTC format plus time zone indicator inside the database. It will differ from the time stamp logged by the OL Connect Send Printer Driver as well as by the OL Connect Send Job Processor.
The Printer Driver machine time stamp in the Printer Driver log may significantly differ from this value.
• Number of Copies: This is the value set by the OL Connect Send Printer Driver for the number of copies (intended number of copies required for the print job). Some applications do not use the general print job information to define the number of copies. In such (rare) cases, the Number of Copies sent in the job can differ from what the user entered in the print dialog. For example: "IrfanView" does not use the regular Copies indicator, but instead sends the same job as many times as indicated by Copies in its print dialog.
• Number of pages: This is the number of pages for one copy of the print job. This value is calculated by the Windows spooler, when processing the printing order. Please be aware that some applications do an implicit reformatting of jobs if the intended paper size does not match the paper size as selected in the print dialog. This may lead to the fact that the number of pages, as calculated by the spooler and reported by OL Connect Send, can differ from that value as shown to the user in the application itself.
• User name: This is the Windows user name of the user who started the application to produce the print job. It is not - in all cases - the user name of the user who is currently logged into the system.
• Original file name: This is the "file name" as sent from the application to the Windows spooling system. It is taken from the name as it arrives in the spooler. Some applications add info to the name (like Notepad++) while others don’t (like Adobe Reader). OL Connect Send can only use what it gets from the spooler. It does not interact with the applications itself.
• Original file size: The size of the print job - NOT the size of the document file.
• Domain (workgroup) name: The name of the domain or workgroup the printing user belongs to. This is not necessarily the name of the domain the machine itself belongs to.
• Domain / Workgroup Indicator: This domain name is the real domain name or only a workgroup name. For explanations about domains, domain names, users, user names, user domains, logged on users vs. application running users, machine names etc. please refer to the respective Windows help pages or ask your system administrator.
• Machine name: The name of the machine the OL Connect Send Printer Driver is running on as retrieved by the respective Windows API.
• Machine GUID: The unique machine ID of the machine on which the job was produced. It can be used as an additional identification mark to validate the origin of the job.

On Error Tab

For a description of the options on the On Error tab see Using the On Error tab.

Miscellaneous Tab

The Miscellaneous tab is common to all tasks.

It contains a text area (Task comments) that lets you write comments about the task. These comments are saved when the dialog is closed with the OK button and are displayed in the Task Comments Pane.

Check the option Use as step description to display the text next to the icon of the plugin in the Process area.

The tab also provides an option to highlight the task in The Process area with the default color, set in the Preferences (see General appearance preferences), or the color selected or defined under Highlight color on this tab.
To revert the selected highlight color to the default color, open this tab, turn the Highlight option off and close the dialog with the OK button; then turn highlighting back on.
Highlighting can also be turned on and off via the task's contextual menu and with the Highlight button on the View ribbon.