USER GUIDE Spool-Explorer Release 8.0. For IBM i and Windows.
Spool-Explorer TM End-User Spool File Management, Conversion and Distribution tool.
BCD Software LLC. A Quadrant, LLC Software Company 950 York Road Hinsdale IL, 60521 USA Phone: 630-986-0800 Fax: 630-986-0926 E-Mail: [email protected] Web: www.bcdsoftware.com
Software Development and Technical Support: ExcelSystems Software Development ULC A Quadrant, LLC Software Company 101-9724 Fourth Street Sidney, BC Canada V8L 2Y7 Phone: 250-655-1766 Fax: 250-655-1733 E-Mail: [email protected] Web: www.bcdsoftware.com Copyright Notice Spool-Explorer is a Trademark of ESD. Program © 2016 ExcelSystems Software Development Inc. (ESD). All rights reserved.
Spool-Explorer User Guide written and produced by ESDI using Adobe FrameMaker 7.0. Copyright © 2016, ESD. All rights reserved. This document many not, in whole or part, be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated, or reduced to any electronic medium or machine readable form without written consent from ESDI. System Requirements Spool Explorer requires OS/400 V6R1M0 or higher. TCP/IP networking and an operational SMTP mail server. Supported Operating Systems: Windows 7; Windows 8; Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2; Windows Server 2008; Windows Server 2008 R2; Windows Vista Service Pack 1.Consult the Microsoft web site for minimum system requirements for each operating system (e.g. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/system- requirements). If you are processing exceptionally large spool files you may need more hard drive space. Acknowledgments Throughout this manual, reference is made to several trademarks: Spool-Explorer, Nexus, Catapult, WebSmart and Exodus are trademarks of ESDI. IBM, AS/400, IBM i and OS/400 are trademarks of International Business Machines. Windows, Windows 98 and Windows XP are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Acrobat is a registered trademark of Adobe. All other trademarks are acknowledged as the properties of their respective owners. Printed in Canada. First Printing (PDF) July 6, 2016 BCD SECTION I INTRODUCTION TO SPOOL-EXPLORER
Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION ...... 9
Chapter 2 INSTALLATION AND CONFIGURATION ...... 13 Entering The Trial Period License Key...... 14 Upgrader’s Notes ...... 14
Chapter 3 GETTING STARTED WITH SPOOL-EXPLORER ...... 15 Starting a Spool-Explorer Session ...... 15 Filter and Toolbar Options...... 18 Viewing a Spool File ...... 19 Downloading Files in Other Formats ...... 20 Working with Downloaded Files ...... 20 Saving a Spool File to Disk ...... 20 Using EZ-Pickin's with Spool-Explorer ...... 26 Printing Spool Files ...... 27 Emailing Spool Files...... 28
SECTION II SPOOL-EXPLORER PC APPLICATION REFERENCE
Chapter 4 USING THE SPOOL-EXPLORER PC APPLICATION ...... 31 Connecting to the IBM i ...... 31 The Main Window ...... 32 Spool-Explorer Configuration Options ...... 33 IBM i Configuration Options...... 33 EZ-Pickin's Settings ...... 34 Transformation Profiles ...... 35 Email Configuration ...... 36 Download Options...... 37 Default Font ...... 39
Table of Contents 3 Chapter 5 WORKING WITH SPOOL FILE LISTS ...... 41 Downloading Spool File Lists ...... 41 The Spool File List Window ...... 42 Working with Spool File List Entries ...... 43 Viewing a Spool File...... 44 Working with Spool File IBM i Attributes ...... 45
Chapter 6 WORKING WITH DOWNLOADED SPOOL FILES ...... 47 Opening Spool Files in Other Applications ...... 48 Emailing Your Spool File...... 49 Using Spool-Explorer Rich Format Tags In Your Reports ...... 50
Chapter 7 SPOOL FILE SAVE OPTIONS ...... 53 Saving the Spool File to Disk...... 53 Customizing PDF, HTML and RTF Files ...... 56 Building Bookmarks and Hypertext Links ...... 60 Using the Preview Window to Define Bookmarks ...... 62 Adobe PDF Security Options ...... 64 Encryption ...... 65 Graphic Overlays ...... 67 Profiles ...... 69
Chapter 8 SPOOL-EXPLORER SECURITY ...... 71 Configuration ...... 73 Security Setup ...... 73 Queue, User, Form Type, User Data, File Name & Job ...... 74 Defining Queues Subsets ...... 75 Locking SP@USRF ...... 77
Index ...... 79
4 Table of Contents About the Spool-Explorer Documentation
This User Guide is written for Spool-Explorer Version 8.0, and supersedes all prior documentation. The User Guide is presented in three major sections: Section I - The first four chapters are designed to introduce you to the software and get you started using the most common features as quickly as possible. Chapter 1 is a short overview of what Spool-Explorer is, and Chapter 2 includes the installation and configuration instructions. Spool-Explorer allows you to initiate spool file downloads from both the PC and IBM i. Chapter 3 includes a tutorial of the PC application, designed to quickly acquaint you with the most commonly used features of the software. Section II - The Spool-Explorer PC Application Reference provides detailed information and step by step instructions for performing all tasks in the product. Chapter 4 includes an overview of all the functions and menu options in the PC application. Chapter 5 describes the process of downloading spool file lists and how to work with list entries. Chapter 6 explains how to work with downloaded spool files, and Chapter 7 addresses the many options available for saving spool files on your PC. Finally, at the end of the guide are appendices providing additional information about security, communications, and character translation issues for foreign language systems, as well as a list of new features. There is also a section to assist you with troubleshooting potential connection and download problems. Questions? Please Call! If you have any questions on how to use the Spool-Explorer documentation please don’t hesitate to contact our support group at (250) 655-1766 [7:30 AM - 5:00 PM PST], by email at [email protected], or using our online chat prompts at http://www.bcdsoftware.com.
About this Guide 5 6 About this Guide Section I - Introduction to Spool-Explorer
SECTION I Introduction to Spool-Explorer
In this Section: Chapter 1 - Introduction Chapter 2 - Installation and Configuration Chapter 3 - Getting Started with Spool-Explorer
1 - Introduction
C HAPTER 1
Introduction
Spool-Explorer is a PC and IBM i application for viewing, downloading, converting and managing spool files created on the IBM i. The user-interface is PC based, so you get all the advantages of a Windows graphical application in terms of ease of use and flexibility. The IBM i programs use OS/400 APIs to provide fast and reliable access to output queues, lists of spool files, and their attributes and contents. The PC and IBM i programs communicate using TCP/IP for fast, easily configured connections. Using TCP/IP ensures downloads are processed at optimum speed. In addition, Spool-Explorer comes with IBM i commands that enable you to automatically initiate a PC task to download a spool file to any PC, then optionally work with it in EZ-Pickin's, BCD's Report Mining tool. Below is an illustration of the Spool-Explorer main window after downloading a spool file list, and opening a few spool files:
Figure 1-1. The main Spool-Explorer window. Flexible Report Downloads You can use Spool-Explorer to download spool files from your IBM i using the PC interface above by simply pointing and clicking on the files you need. You can also download files by running an IBM i command from a command line, or embedded within any IBM i program. Viewing and Saving Reports Using Other Applications Spool-Explorer includes tools for viewing and saving files in several different formats, including Adobe PDF, HTML, Rich Text Format, EZ-Pickin’s PRN, and TIF.
10 Section I - Introduction to Spool-Explorer Here is an illustration of the Save As dialog:
Figure 1-2. Sample of the Save As dialog. In this illustration we are beginning to save a spool file as a PDF. With PDF, HTML and RTF documents you can change the attributes of your files to enhance their appearance, and easily add hypertext bookmarks to the key values in your reports. And when you override the attributes of a file before saving it in one of these formats, you can save your settings in a Profile, which you can re-use with other files. In addition, the spool file list right-click options allow you instantly preview a file in one of these formats. Interface to EZ-Pickin's EZ-Pickin's is BCD's PC-Based Report Mining application. Using EZ-Pickin’s you can filter out any set of data from a report and format it for use in other PC applications, such as Excel. Or, from within EZ-Pickin's itself, you can create new reports that include calculated fields, filters over your original data, and sophisticated graphs and charts. Security Functions Spool-Explorer includes some sophisticated security functions that build on your existing IBM i object security. You can define settings for Users and Groups allowing access to only specific sets of spool files, and changes to certain parameters in how lists are loaded.
Chapter 1 - Introduction 11 12 Section I - Introduction to Spool-Explorer 2 - Installation and Configuration
C HAPTER 2
Installation and Configuration
You can find the latest installation instructions for Spool-Explorer at our website, at the following address:
http://www.bcdsoftware.com/iseries400solutions/spool‐explorer/ productinfo/installation/ Please visit this page and follow the steps outlined there. What Is Installed Spool-Explorer is comprised of three main components: 1. An IBM i component, consisting of three libraries. These are: