Configure Transflo DMS Rendition Print Service

The first area of the File Structure Properties dialog box is called the General area.

Here, the spool file type is determined and other general spool file settings are established.

Some of the settings include:

• Days until Force Print - Maximum number of days that the system will wait before changing the status of an invoice from Redo to ForcePrint

• Redo Interval In Hours - Number of hours that the Invoice Process Component will defer processing an input file invoice when the status has been set to “Redo”

• Max Invoices In Error - Maximum number of consecutive invoices to fail before the spool file status is set to Error

• Spool File Size Delay Enabled - Whether or not to defer moving a file if its size is still changing

• Size Delay In Seconds - Number of seconds to wait before attempting to move the file again

• Default Table - The imaging Doc Class to use

• Workflow Enabled - Whether to enable TRANSFLO® WorkFlow

• Batch Spool Files Enabled - Whether spool files should be batched

• Max Batch File Count and Max File Size - Number and size limitations for batched spool files

• Import Queue - The name of the TRANSFLO® import queue to which invoices will be sent

Note: When files are processed during a Redo cycle, the status of invoice items goes from Redo to Ready, and then to Clean Up or back to Redo.

The invoice item status never shows that an invoice is being processed.

Spool file status, however, does indicate processing.

Note: A Batch Id (Batch Name) must be passed to the TRANSFLO® Server for each record. (The field designated as the Batch Name cannot be NULL.)

As noted earlier, the fields and control in the lower area will change depending on the type of spool file selected.

Perform the following steps to configure the General Settings tab:

1. Select the Enabled File Structure check box if the Rendition Print Service’s Process Manager will process file types identified by this file structure’s spool file extension.

2. In the Spool File Extension box, type the file extension that the Rendition Print Service’s Input Manager will use to identify a client’s input files.

This is a required field.

Type “TXT” if the spool files will be text files or type “XML” if the spool files will be XML files.

3. Select a spool file type from the Type list.

To do this, click the list arrow, and then click the type of spool file to be used.

The available choices are:

• Text - Line Control

• Text - No Line Control

• XML

Note: Once a spool file type has been saved for the file structure, it cannot be changed.

4. In the Template Filename box, type the name of the template script file that will be used to process the file’s contents (50 character maximum).

• Script files have a default extension of “TPL”.

or

• Click the Browse button to search the Client Files folders for the template file.

The file must be stored in the respective client’s sub-folder under the “Client Files” system directory.

When you select the template file to use, it is automatically saved to the Client Files directory.

This is a required field.

If you need to edit the template script file, click the Edit button.

5. In the Days until Force Print box, enter the maximum number of days that the system can suspend an input file while waiting on a redo before being forced to process it, or accept the default (3).

Typically an input file is suspended because supporting documents, required in the document generation phase, are not yet available.

The range of values is 0 to 9999.

Values less or greater than this range are automatically set to the minimum or maximum value respectively.

This is a required field.

6. In the Max Invoices In Error box, enter the maximum number of consecutive invoices to fail (i.e., to mark with a status of “error”) before the system will mark the spool file with a status of error and suspend further processing for that spool.

The default number of invoices is 3.

The range of available values is from 0 to 10.

7. In the Default Table box, type the name of the default Document Manager table where the image look up will be done (50 character maximum).

8. If your TRANSFLO® system includes Pegasus TransTech’s Workflow product, select the Workflow Enabled check box to set a corresponding flag in a generated PBS (Image Index) file for images saved to Workflow’s Import Images directory.

9. If a spool file pending redo should be re-processed immediately upon receipt of an updated spool file, select the Spool Receipt Triggers Redos check box.

Important: If a spool file was originally processed as part of a ZIP archive, it must be re-processed as part of a duplicate archive.

If the spool file is re-processed by itself, it will cause a conflict in Rendition Print Service.

10. In the Redo Interval In Hours box, enter the number of hours for which the Invoice Process Component should defer processing an input file invoice when the status has been set to “Redo.”

The default value is 0, which means that the spool file will be processed again as soon as its status is set to Redo.

11. Select the Spool File Size Delay Enabled check box if you wish to enable the Spool File Size Delay Interval functionality for the current file structure.

If selected, the Input Manager will defer moving a file from a client’s Input folder to the Archive folder if the file size is changing.

Input Manager will then make another attempt after the delay interval passes.

If disabled, the Input manager will not delay moving a file to the Archive folder for processing.

12. In the Size Delay In Seconds box, enter the number of seconds that the Input Manager will defer moving a file from the client’s input folder to the archive folder for processing.

The default value is 5 seconds.

The available range of values is from 1 to 60.

This field is only available if the Spool File Size Delay Enabled check box has been selected.

13. If you wish for Rendition Print Service to batch multiple spool files into a single spool file, select the Batch Spool Files Enabled check box. (If this option is not selected, Rendition Print Service will process spool files in their original format.)

14. In the Max Batch File Count box, enter the maximum number of invoices that can be included in a single spool file.

The default value is 0, which means the maximum number of files is unlimited.

15. In the Max File Size box, enter the maximum file size for the batch spool file.

The default value is 0, which means the maximum file size is unlimited.

16. In the Input Folder box, enter the full path of the folder that should be monitored for incoming spool files.

To do this, either type the path in the box, or click the Browse button and navigate to the desired folder.

If you type a folder path that does not exist, a prompt will be displayed asking if you want to create the folder.

Important: Make sure that the Rendition Print Service has full permissions to the Input folder.

If the Rendition Print Service has read-only permission to the Input folder, files will not be removed and will be processed as new.

17. In the Output Folder box, enter the full path of the folder where batch files should be saved.

To do this, either type the path in the box, or click the Browse button and navigate to the desired folder.

If you type a folder path that does not exist, a prompt will be displayed asking if you want to create the folder.

18. In the Import Queue box, type the name of the queue on TRANSFLO® Server that will receive invoices from Rendition Print Service.

Proceed to the section below pertaining to the spool file type that you selected in the Type list.

• If you selected Text - Line Control, see Text - Line Control.

• If you selected Text - No Line Control, see Text - No Line Control.

• If you selected XML File, see XML File.

To configure the Start/End Block tab:

1. Click the Start/End Block tab.

2. In the Indicator box, type the expression sequence of characters that will mark the beginning or end of the document page (255 character maximum).

All regular expressions will be validated to ensure that they are accurately formed.

3. Click the Check Syntax button to validate the regular expression for syntax errors.

The status of the selected regular expression is displayed in the small text label in the lower left hand corner of the regular expression editor tab control.

Note: The syntax of regular expressions is checked for errors when a file is parsed.

4. In the Type list, select the type of block marker to use.

The type of marker used will depend on whether the information entered in the Indicator box describes the start or end of the block.

The available options are Start of Block and End of Block.

The default value is Start of Block.

5. In the Line Offset list, select the number of lines that the actual page data can be offset from the block marker position.

For the Start Indicator, this is the number of lines (0 - 99) below the block marker location and indicates where the page data actually starts.

For the End Indicator, this is the number of lines (0 - 9) above the block marker location and indicates where the page data actually ends.

The default is 0.

6. Click the File View tab to view the results of parsing the entire spool file.

This view provides a “big picture” view of the file parsing process.

On this tab, you can click the Load File button to load a spool file into the box above.

Once the spool file is loaded into the box, you can interactively test the regular expression used to specify the block, continuation, sort, and invoice ID data.

In addition, you can click the Parse button to apply the regular expressions from the Start/End Block, Continuation, Sort, and Identifier tab expression fields to the lines of text in the box.

The application uses the following color identification:

• Start/End Block Marker - Red, Bold

• Continuation Marker Text - Green, Bold

• Continuation Marker Sub-string data- Yellow, Bold

• Sort Text - Blue, Bold

• Invoice ID Text - Maroon, Bold

7. Click the Block View tab to view how the regular expression for the start or end and continuation will cause the file to be subdivided into documents or blocks.

Once the tab has been selected, you can navigate through the file block-by-block by clicking the following navigation buttons:

• First - Navigates to the first block of the file.

• Next - Navigates to the next block in the file.

• Previous - Navigates to the previous block in the file.

• Last - Navigates to the last block in the file.

Note: The spool file first must be parsed for the results to be seen in the block view.

This view will be refreshed every time a parse operation is completed.

8. Click the Expression Help tab to view a reference of standard regular expression terms and to view some commonly used regular expression strings.

For additional information, see Using the Expression Help Tab.

9. Click the OK button to save the changes and close the dialog box.

To configure the Page Continuation tab:

1. Click the Page Continuation tab.

2. In the Indicator box, type the expression sequence of characters that will indicate if the page is part of a multi-page invoice (255 character maximum).

All regular expressions will be validated to ensure that they are accurately formed.

3. Click the Check Syntax button to validate the regular expression for syntax errors.

The status of the selected regular expression is displayed in the small text label in the lower left hand corner of the regular expression editor tab control.

4. In the Type list, select the type of continuation marker to be used.

The type determines if the continuation marker text will be static or variable.

Static marker text will use the same sequence of characters recurring on each page.

Variable marker text means that a sub-string within the string returned by the continuation marker’s regular expression will indicate if the page is a continuation of the current document.

The available types are USE WHOLE LINE (static, the default) and USE SUB STRING (variable).

Tip: If the USE WHOLE LINE option is selected, the Column and Length boxes are not available for selection.

They are available only if USE SUB STRING is selected.

5. In the Column box, enter the starting position number (0 - 99) for the sub-string that will be extracted from the expression indicator.

The default is 0.

Note: This box is not available if the USE WHOLE LINE continuation marker type was selected.

6. In the Length box, enter the length (0 - 99) of the sub-string that will be extracted from the line returned by the expression indicator.

The extraction will begin at the position indicated in the column list.

The default is 0.

Note: This box is not available if the USE WHOLE LINE continuation marker type was selected.

7. Click the File View tab to view the results of parsing the entire spool file.

This view provides a “big picture” view of the file parsing process.

On this tab, you can click the Load File button to load a spool file into the box above.

Once the spool file is loaded into the box, you can interactively test the regular expression used to specify the block, continuation, sort, and invoice ID data. In addition, you can click the Parse button to apply the regular expressions from the Start/End Block, Page Continuation, Sort, and Identifier tab expression fields to the lines of text in the box.

The application uses the following color identification:

• Start/End Block Marker - Red, Bold

• Continuation Marker Text - Green, Bold

• Continuation Marker Sub-string data - Yellow, Bold

• Sort Text - Blue, Bold

• Invoice ID Text - Maroon, Bold

8. Click the Block View tab to view how the regular expression for the start or end and continuation will cause the file to be subdivided into documents or blocks.

Once the tab has been selected, you can navigate through the file, block by block, by clicking the following navigation buttons:

• First - Navigates to the first block of the file.

• Next - Navigates to the next block in the file.

• Previous - Navigates to the previous block in the file.

• Last - Navigates to the last block in the file.

Note: The spool file first must be parsed for the results to be seen in the block view.

This view will be refreshed every time a parse operation is completed.

9. Click the Expression Help tab to view a reference of standard regular expression terms and some commonly used regular expression strings.

For additional information, see Using the Expression Help Tab.

10. Click the OK button to save the changes and close the dialog box.

To configure the Sort tab:

1. Click the Sort tab.

2. Select the Enabled check box if the invoices should be sorted before they are processed.

By default, the check box is cleared.

3. In the Indicator box, type the expression sequence (255 character maximum) that will be used to find the line containing the data that will determine the order in which invoices are sorted when Rendition Print Service processes the invoice.

All regular expressions will be validated to ensure that they are accurately formed.

4. Click the Check Syntax button to validate the regular expression for syntax errors.

The status of the selected regular expression is displayed in the small text label in the lower left hand corner of the regular expression editor tab control.

Note: The syntax of regular expressions is checked for errors when a file is parsed.

5. In the Column box, enter the starting position number (0 - 99) for the sub-string that will be extracted from the sort marker’s expression indicator.

The default is 0.

6. In the Length box, enter the length (0 - 99) of the sub-string that will be extracted from the line returned by the expression indicator.

The extraction will begin at the position indicated in the Column box.

The default is 0.

7. Click the File View tab to view the results of parsing the entire spool file.

This view provides a “big picture” view of the file parsing process.

On this tab, you can click the Load File button to load a spool file into the box above.

Once the spool file is loaded into the box, you can interactively test the regular expression used to specify the block, continuation, sort, and invoice ID data.

In addition, you can click the Parse button to apply the regular expressions from the Start/End Block, Page Continuation, Sort, and Identifier tab expression fields to the lines of text in the box.

The application uses the following color identification:

• Start/End Block Marker - Red, Bold

• Continuation Marker Text - Green, Bold

• Continuation Marker Sub-string data - Yellow, Bold

• Sort Text - Blue, Bold

• Invoice ID Text - Maroon, Bold

8. Click the Block View tab to view how the regular expression for the start or end and continuation will cause the file to be subdivided into documents or blocks.

Once the tab has been selected, you can navigate through the file, block by block, by clicking the following navigation buttons:

• First - Navigates to the first block of the file.

• Next - Navigates to the next block in the file.

• Previous - Navigates to the previous block in the file.

• Last - Navigates to the last block in the file.

Note: The spool file first must be parsed for the results to be seen in the block view.

This view will be refreshed every time a parse operation is completed.

9. Click the Expression Help tab to view a reference of standard regular expression terms and some commonly used regular expression strings.

For additional information, see Using the Expression Help Tab.

10. Click the OK button to save the changes and close the dialog box.

To configure the Identifier tab:

1. Click the Identifier tab.

2. In the Indicator box, type the expression sequence that will be used to locate information that uniquely identifies the invoice (255 character maximum).

All regular expressions will be validated to ensure that they are accurately formed expressions.

3. Click the Check Syntax button to validate the regular expression for syntax errors.

The status of the selected regular expression is displayed in the small text label in the lower left hand corner of the regular expression editor tab control.

Note: The syntax of regular expressions is checked for errors when a file is parsed.

4. In the Column box, enter the starting position number (0 - 99) for the sub-string that will be extracted from the invoice identifier regular expression.

The default is 0.

5. In the Length box, enter the length (0 - 99) of the sub-string that will be extracted from the line returned by the invoice identifier marker’s regular expression.

The extraction will begin at the position indicated in the Column box.

The default is 0.

6. Click the File View tab to view the results of parsing the entire spool file.

This view provides a “big picture” view of the file parsing process.

On this tab, you can click the Load File button to load a spool file into the box above.

Once the spool file is loaded into the box, you can interactively test the regular expression used to specify the block, continuation, sort, and invoice ID data.

In addition, you can click the Parse button to apply the regular expressions from the Start/End Block, Page Continuation, Sort, and Identifier tab expression fields to the lines of text in the box.

The application uses the following color identification:

• Start/End Block Marker - Red, Bold

• Continuation Marker Text- Green, Bold

• Continuation Marker Sub-string data - Yellow, Bold

• Sort Text- Blue, Bold

• Invoice Id Text- Maroon, Bold

7. Click the Block View tab to view how the regular expression for the start or end and continuation will cause the file to be subdivided into documents or blocks.

Once the tab has been selected, you can navigate through the file, block by block, by clicking the following navigation buttons:

• First - Navigates to the first block of the file.

• Next - Navigates to the next block in the file.

• Previous - Navigates to the previous block in the file.

• Last - Navigates to the last block in the file.

Note: The spool file first must be parsed for the results to be seen in the block view.

This view will be refreshed every time a parse operation is completed.

8. Click the Expression Help tab to view a reference of standard regular expression terms and some commonly used regular expression strings.

For additional information, see Using the Expression Help Tab.

9. Click the OK button to save the changes and close the dialog box.

 

Expression Help Tab

The Expression Help tab contains a quick reference for regular expression syntax. The regular expression syntax and the corresponding description are designed to assist you in understanding the commonly used regular expression building blocks.

To select a regular expression, simply highlight the regular expression and then double-click the selected expression on the grid. The selected element will be added to the selected parsing indicator in the expression view (i.e., the Start/End Block, Continuation, Sort, or Identifier tab).

A detailed explanation of the regular expression string is displayed in the window below the regular expression grid. The expressions are sorted in alphabetical order according to the description.

The expression may contain simple or complex search strings depending on the content of the flat text spool file’s contents.

Allowable characters in a regular expression are any characters, series of characters, meta-characters, or escape sequences that can be interpreted as directives and used by a regular expression parser.

The following are examples of regular expressions:

• [-az] matches “a”, “z” and “-”

• [az-] matches “a”, “z” and “-”

• [a\-z] matches “a”, “z” and “-”

• [a-z] matches all twenty six lowercase characters from “a” to “z”

• [\n-\x0D] matches line feed, vertical tab, form feed, or carriage return characters.

• [\d-t] matches any digit, “-” or a lowercase “t”.

• []-a] matches any char from “]” through lowercase “a”.

The following table list the meta-characters that are allowed within a regular expression:

\	Backslash. In order to search for characters that are normally used in regular expressions, one has to quote these characters by a preceding backslash.
^	Circumflex. A circumflex as the first character of the regular expression con- strains matches to the beginning of lines. A circumflex as the first character of a set inverts the set. In any other case, a circumflex is not allowed and has to be quoted by a preceding backslash in order to be searched for.
$	Dollar. A dollar sign as the last character of the regular expression con- strains matches to the end of lines.
.	Period. A period matches any single character.
[]	Square brackets. A string enclosed in square brackets defines a character set which matches the string at the current position. If the first character of the string is a circumflex, the set is inverted (this means that the regular expression matches any character except for the characters in the set). In order to specify a range of characters, the first and the last characters of the range have to be connected by a hyphen (e.g. [0-9] defines a set of all digits). Note that most of the special characters usually used as expression specifiers (i.e., $ . [ ( ) ? * and +) are treated as normal characters when used in a set definition. The only exceptions are the circumflex, the backslash, the hyphen, and the closing bracket. These characters have to be quoted by a preceding backslash in order to be processed correctly.
?	Question mark. An expression followed by a question mark matches zero or one occurrence of that expression.
*	Asterisk. An expression followed by an asterisk matches zero or more occurrences of that expression.
+	Plus. An expression followed by a plus sign matches one or more occurrences of that expression.
\xnn	Special character. ASCII code of an arbitrary character where “nn” is a two digit hexadecimal number representing the ASCII code of this character.
()	Parentheses. Parentheses can be used to group characters together prior to using the repetition operators * + or ?. Parentheses must not be stacked.

 

 

TheSelect Namespace dialog box is used to allow the user to select from a list of namespaces that are present within an XML schema file when working with an XML-formatted spool file.

To access this dialog box, in the File Structure Properties dialog box, select the XML Formatted File check box and then click the Browse button next to the Schema Target Name Space box.

The value of the XSD Schema Filename box is used as the browsing source.

If the filename in the XSD Schema Filename box exists and is a well-formed XML document, then the dialog will appear with a list of namespaces found within the schema file.

The Schema Target Name Space box will be filled in with the selected value from this dialog box if you click the OK button.

To select the target name space for the schema:

1. In the list shown, select the file that contains the namespaces that are present within an XML schema file and is part of “transflo.com” (e.g., http://www.transflo.com/PackingSlipScheme.xsd).

2. Click the OK button to save the highlighted file in the Schema Target Name Space box on the File Structure Properties dialog box.

XML is a very flexible text format that provides a uniform method for describing and exchanging structured data that is independent of applications or vendors. Like HTML, XML is a set of tags and declarations but rather than being concerned with formatting information on a page, XML focuses on providing information about data and specifying the characteristics of that data.

XML documents are made up of storage units called entities, which contain either parsed or un-parsed data. Parsed data is made up of characters, some of which form character data, and some of which form markup. Markup encodes a description of the document's storage layout and logical structure.

XML provides a mechanism to impose constraints on the storage layout and logical structure of a document. In reality, XML need not be a document at all in the traditional sense since XML and XML Schemas can exist as a flow of bytes between applications or as fields in a database record. The appeal of XML lies in the ability to invent tags that convey meaningful information that can be processed by applications and read by users.

The purpose of a schema is to define a class of XML documents. In general, a schema can be viewed as a collection (vocabulary) of type definitions and element declarations whose names belong to a particular namespace called a target namespace. Target namespaces enable us to distinguish between definitions and declarations from different vocabularies. For example, target namespaces would enable us to distinguish between the declaration for “element” in the XML Schema language vocabulary, and a declaration for “element” in a hypothetical chemistry language vocabulary.

The former is part of the http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema target namespace, and the latter is part of another target namespace.

An XML namespace is a collection of names, identified by a URI reference or Uniform Resource Identifiers. A URI is nothing more than a short string that identifies resources on the Web such as files, documents, images, or whatever.

When we want to check that an XML document conforms to one or more schemas (through a process called schema validation), we need to identify which element and attribute declarations and type definitions in the schemas should be used to check which elements and attributes in the XML document. The target namespace is what allows us to carry out this identification process.

XML documents that are processed by Rendition Print Service as spool files must have both an XML schema file and the schema file’s target namespace specified. This ensures that every spool file that is processed is first validated against the schema file and the associated target namespace prior to actually performing any processing on the file.

XML spool files that fail to validate against the specified schema and target namespace that is found in the File Structure will be marked with a status of ERROR and no further processing will take place.

The Schema Target Name Space field should be a valid URI (Uniform Resource Identifier). The Rendition Print Administrator executable File Structure dialog does not validate the contents of the target namespace edit box; only that it is non-blank. A typical target namespace would look like:

http://www.transflo.com/TransfloSchema.xsd

 

Strictly speaking, this is not the address of a web page -- any attempt to address this through a browser would likely result in an HTTP protocol error -- but simply a unique string that is used to identify the vocabulary associated with a particular schema.

It is customary to use a URI that is controlled by the schema originator. The target namespace for a schema can be found in the schema file itself specified as the targetNamespace attribute of the <schema> tag.

A third attribute that is also found on the File Structure for an XML spool file is the “XML Node Name of ID Field” field. This field, though not required, allows the user to identify an XML document element whose node value contains the ID data for the document. The ID data is stored in the TESInvoice table’s DescriptiveValue field if an XML node name is specified. If the node name value supplied is incorrect or left blank, then no ID data will be retrieved for the document.

The AS/400 user account to be used by Rendition Print Service should either be configured so that its password never expires, or the account should be carefully monitored to ensure that the password is not allowed to expire.

An expired password on the Rendition Print Service account can result in multiple spool files falling into error status.

If this happens, the AS/400 multiple select function can be used to reset all of the errored items to ready, rather than resetting them individually.

If running TRANSFLO® Document Manager with Rendition Print Service, the AS/400 “Threadsafe” and “Stateless” options cannot be active simultaneously, or performance issues will result for Rendition Print Service.

Should you need to re-process a spool file, the spool file must be re-processed in the same format as the original spool file.

If the original spool file was processed as part of a ZIP archive that included the associated TIF files, the re-processed spool file must also be in a ZIP file with the required TIFs.

The spool file in this scenario cannot be re-processed by itself.

Failure to follow this method will cause Rendition Print Service to stop running.

Files will be processed in first-in-first-out (FIFO) order.

Therefore, it is very important that if there are files that are sent to Rendition Print Service that depend on each other, the files must be sent to Rendition Print Service in the correct order.

FIFO is based on each client, in the order of each created file structure.

In a multi-client configuration, individual threads are used for each client, which can maintain FIFO only on a per client basis.

Some brands of anti-virus software may view Rendition Print Service as a mass mailing worm and block the application from sending e-mail. You must configure your anti-virus software so that Rendition Print Service is permitted to communicate outside of the computer where it is installed.

For example, in the case of McAfee Anitivirus, the value “RPService.exe” should be added to the Excluded Processes list for the Port Blocking (Prevent Mass Services from Sending Email) setting under the Access Protection settings. (Consult your antivirus software’s documentation if you use another brand of antivirus software.)

If Rendition Print Service is being blocked, your anti-virus software event viewer or log files may not log the cause of the e-mail failure, but the virus protection log should capture the issue.

For trouble shooting purposes you can temporarily override the Log Level from the file system.

To override the log level:

1. Navigate to the TRANSFLO® Client log folder.

This is typically is C:\Program Files\Common Files\Pegasus TransTech\Transflo Client\Logs\Transflo.ClientConfig

2. Create a text file in the log folder and rename it to Log.Config.

3. Open the file with a text editor and add the following line to the file:

<Config LogLevel="[Level]" />

where,

[Level] is an integer between 0 and 4 indicating the log level.

The available log levels are:

• 0: No Logging

• 1: Errors Only

• 2: Errors and Warnings

• 3: Detailed

• 4: Trace

  Example: For the log level to be set to Trace the entry in the Log.Config file will be:

  <Config LogLevel="4" />

4. Save and close the Log.Config file.

The log level has changed.

5. To disable this feature and revert to the configured log level, rename the Log.Configfile to Log.Config.Old.