Q: What makes Unitask Output Director for Oracle unique from other industry offerings?
Unitask Output Director is a unique solution that delivers virtualized print capability for the Oracle E-Business Suite (OEBS). Output Director allows all OEBS output to be printed on any printer, anywhere, at anytime, thus eliminating the need to setup, configure, and maintain specialized UNIX or LINUX print queues for Oracle printing.
Designed and developed as an OEBS application module that installs directly into an Oracle instance, Unitask Output Director does not require any additional hardware or software. This further simplifies the enterprise and day-to-day operations support. Once installed, Output Director completely eliminates the Oracle requirements of repeatedly setting up print queues in the operating system and either minimizes or totally removes the need to configure printers in the E-Business Suite.
In addition, Unitask Output Director not only eliminates redundant capital expenditures for print servers and hardware. Most importantly, it immediately relieves the Oracle IT staff of the tedious and non-value added tasks of printer setup and administration, while delivering a more efficient enterprise-printing environment.
Q. Do my users need to learn new applications in addition to the Oracle E-Business Suite Application?
No. User retraining is not required with Unitask Output Director as printing is completely transparent to the end user. Output Director demands absolutely no change in the way a user executes an Oracle print job across the Enterprise. The user continues to use the standard OEBS concurrent request to select their printer and print their output.
Additionally, Output Director empowers users to do more in less time with less effort. From a standard Oracle print request, a user now has several output options. With a simple point and click the user may
- Print locally or on the network
- Print remotely at home or on the road
- Preview a report before printing
- E-mail a report, and print supporting documents as attachments with their report.
- Create a PDF
Q. What does the install process for Unitask Output Director for Oracle look like? Will I need to install software on the client workstation?
The Unitask Output Director solution set is designed for rapid deployment and rapid return. The average implementation requires approximately one (1) hour to complete, first with generated reports and output available minutes later. When preparing for installation, DBA privileges for set up and initiation are required. The automated process once initiated will allow for the rapid inclusion of local print functionality, as well as that of remote print functionality, all while respecting the security and accessibility of the user and network.
Unitask Output Director is incredibly small compared to most Oracle modules. Requiring fewer than 20MB of fixed space on both the Concurrent Manager and Application Server, Output Director is very lightweight. Any additional variable space requirements are site specific and can be outlined in a preinstall planning discussion.
Q. Does Output Director integrate with all Oracle E-Business Suite business modules? Specifically the integration and use with BI Publisher (XMLp) is critical.
Yes. Unitask Output Director behaves as an Oracle layered solution and provides a full range of support for any and all native Oracle OEBS modules and print resources. Anything you can print today from your Oracle Applications Suite can be supported with Unitask Output Director. Output Director also fully supports output generated by BI Publisher.
Q. Does Migration Director integrate with all Oracle E-Business Suite modules?
Yes! Unitask Migration Director supports entities within all application modules, as well as the native Oracle loaders FNDLOAD, AKLOAD, WF LOAD and the EUL API. Any entity that uses one of these loaders and is accessible via the API can be migrated using Migration Director. With entities that do not use these loaders, Migration Director provides two proprietary loaders and is extensible to support the use of other loader utilities.
Q. Does Unitask Output Director centrally support devices that are on the local network as well as those on the geographically remote networks?
Yes. Unitask Output Director provides full support for print resources installed locally as well as those located in geographically dispersed parts of the Enterprise. Output Director enables printing to occur in two different modes, LOCAL and DIRECT. LOCAL print mode routes the output in PDF format directly to the user’s workstation allowing the Windows Desktop printers to be used to print the Oracle output.
There are no geographical boundaries when using the LOCAL print option with Output Director. Administration of the local printers is performed by Windows Desktop helpdesk, which is generally managed across the enterprise. Under Unitask Output Director DIRECT print, all printers are defined and centrally managed from within the Oracle instance. DIRECT print resources are then accessible to all users from anywhere on the Enterprise. Unitask Output Director further respects network and IP security, with the understanding that some users may be restricted from accessing certain segments of the Enterprise. In these network configurations, the DIRECT printers on the restricted segments are only available to users with access to those segments, thus ensuring compliance with the policy and practice of the organization.
Q. What types of print devices does Output Director Support? Specifically, can I integrate this solution to my existing devices for High Output Printers, Laser Printers, Duplex Printers, and Specialty Printers such as Barcode, Label, and Check Printers?
Unitask Output Director is designed to virtualize the usage of all print resources across the enterprise. Output Director can be used with an industry-leading number of printers, printer types, and manufacturers. There should be no issues when using Output Director to print your high volume reports and duplex forms. In addition, Output Director will allow you to print barcodes, labels, and checks on their respective printers.
In summary, Output Director’s ability to support any printer translates to no longer having to do enormous amounts of research and validation testing of special devices and print drivers that are supported in both operating system and OEBS environments. Capital expenditures are further reduced, as it is no longer a requirement to purchase high-end and higher-cost printers to ensure compatibility in your environment.
Q. Does Output Director inject a significant amount of overhead on my systems or on the network?
No. Unitask Output Director has been designed to be enterprise enabled, and minimally intrusive on network or server operations. Architecturally, Unitask Output Director is designed to accommodate a global implementation where network bandwidth may be a concern as well as that of server capacity. Output Director generates the same approximate amount of overhead as that of a refresh request to the concurrent request screen.
In fact, Unitask Migration Director is very small as compared to most Oracle modules. Requiring approximately 1.5MB of fixed space on both the Concurrent Manager server and Application Server, Migration Director is very light weight. Any additional variable space requirements are site specific and vary according to the number of upload or download packages. (Further specifics and details can be outlined in a preinstall planning discussion.)
Q. Regarding specific features and functions, does Unitask Output Director support scheduled printing? Unattended printing? What about the printing of large reports and the reprint option?
Yes. Unitask Output Director supports the functionality of scheduled printing, that of unattended printing, as well as that of print jobs generated from a concurrent request set. Additionally, large report and reprint report functionality is fully supported.
Schedule or Unattended Printing
Output Director supports both scheduled and unattended printing derived from a concurrent request set through its DIRECT print option. Output Director with DIRECT print routes the output generated from a concurrent request directly to the printer, thereby supporting both scheduled and unattended printing.
In either case, a scheduled or regular concurrent request set initiated from the Concurrent Manger is directed to the specified Output Director DIRECT printer, and can then be scheduled, or spawned, from the last request in that concurrent request set. Need to schedule a specific print job? Enabled directly from the “options” section on the standard Oracle concurrent request submission screen, a user schedules the date and time and then selects the specific DIRECT printer from LOV and submits the request. The concurrent request is then executed at the precise time and the output generated from the request is routed to the specified DIRECT printer.
An unattended print request is executed from an Oracle concurrent request configured in the final request instruction set. Within this final request set, change the last request from “noprint” to the specific DIRECT printer in which you want the output to be directed. This change is made using “options.” When the final concurrent request is executed, the output generated from this request is routed to the specified DIRECT printer.
Reprint Option
Reprinting an Oracle print job is done utilizing the same native process within Oracle that is used to reprint on an Oracle configured printer.
Large Reports
Output Director has no limitation on the size or volume of a report. More importantly, to improve network performance, the output file is zipped, transmitted to the client station, unzipped, and then spooled to the printer. Some customers have actually seen a performance increase when users are printing large reports.
