InterForm Manual - System & Method

G eneral Description of OSC (Output Schedule Control)
®
Output Schedule Control (OSC) is a sub-system in InterForm400 which main purpose is to
optimize the daily mail procedures in an organisation and thereby reduce the postage costs
significantly. The key element with this function is that rather then sending 10 envelopes to the
same customer, all documents should be sent together.
OSC will handle multiple spool files, independently of document type and produce a new single
spool file in *SCS format, sorted e.g. according to the recipient name.
OSC jobs works differently than Auto Forms Control jobs. OSC jobs are not running at all times.
OSC jobs wake up at specific times of the week and will merge all spool files waiting at a specific
output queue into one large SCS spool file. This new spool file can be sorted and distributed and
then merged using Auto Forms Control. When all waiting spool files have been handled, the OSC
job goes into ‘sleep mode’ again, and awaits the next ‘wake up call’.
Output Schedule Control can help you print out in these situations:
1. You have large spool files to print. It is not necessary to print them out immediately after they
are created. You want to (automatically) print them out during the night, when the printers are
idle.
2. You are going to print out very large spool files and you want to automatically distribute the
workload on several printers.
3. You have 2 or more spool files, that are to be distributed to the same customers. For easy
and low cost distribution, you want to merge all the spool files to one and sort it, so pages for
the same customer are collected and printed together.
4. You have the situation as described in example 3, but the customer information is placed on
differently on the page depending on the type of spool file.
5. You want to use the solution described in example 3, but you are sending out letters to
customers, and these letters have only customer information on the first page for each
customer.
The setup of the primary functions of Output Schedule Control is managed by selecting menu
option 6. from the main menu. The same menu can be entered directly by the program call:
272 User’s Manual for InterForm400 ®
CALL APF3812/OSCADM
The menu appears like this: