Printing From Test Environment

rogerwilkouk

rogerwilkouk

Active Member
We are currently running on an AS/400 and 3 cirtrix server farm. Everything is running exactly as desired and expected when it come to printing reports via pdf.
I work on the analyst side of the system (finance) just so you know the level of your background.
A new environment is looking to be added to which certain users at some of our companies will have access to. I personally don't like this for a number of reasons, however that is the decision that's been made so it's time to work with it.

The issue I have is restricting the ability to print from this environment. We can't completely cut off the ability to print but I need to be able to prevent users from printing a check or Purchase Order from this environment and I also need a way to force some form of identification that the report/document was printed from the test environment (like a watermark saying TEST or something) so a report isn't accidentally submitted to management from the test environment as opposed to the live environment.

Ideally at the printer select page in JDE, I like it to force it to use a specific "paper style" or something like that.
As it's environment specific, doing it at the report level is not feasible.

My main concerns is auditor requirements, jsox issues and possible fraud.
How do other companies deal with this (or do you just trust in your users). We've never opened up a test environment to regular users previously and they have always been restricted to analysts etc.
 
Roger, I will try to take a dig at it. I may not be able to answer all your questions but here are some ideas.

Since this new environment will be used by certain users only why not create a *PUBLIC *ALL *ALL record under P98616 pointing to a dummy printer. Then create records specific to each user and the reports they are going to use. Since the number of users like you said will not be too many and is limited we can certainly block these users to change the printer at the printer selection screen through security. Now if the user A submits report say R42565 that will only point to printer Z provided it has any entry under P98616, otherwise it points to dummy.

Now the second requirement of watermarking is little tricky, do you have any printing solution at your shop like createform, Optio, formscape, etc. If yes than it would simplify things otherwise JDE is very limited in option when it comes to configuring the printers unless you would like to change something at report level.

-Soumen
 
Roger,

Soumen has given you some excellent suggestions. A few other things I'd like to add is that in addition to the printing solutions he mentioned, you could also do something like this with BI Publisher, in case that's an option for you.
In addition, you could set up the printers to use a separate printers on your server, and change the printing preferences on these printers so that a different paper style or maybe even a watermark is used -- features available here will vary with the make and model of printer you're using.
 
Not sure the dummy printer will work with our set-up. Currently, because we are on AS/400 and it goes into their out-queue and then the user goes to their submitted jobs, does the "View PDF" and at that point JDE has lost control of it and adobe has taken control..
This is where my problem comes in. They open it in pdf and I have zero control with what they do with it. they can print it anywhere and do anything with it.
Unfortunately BI publisher and similar, while an option, would require doing for every report they might run.
 
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