Contents - Index


Print Queue Page

Layout / How To
After a report has been run in the Reports Notebook, it is placed into a holding queue for viewing or printing. Reports remain in this queue until you delete them.

Each print queue entry contains information for when it was run, how many ALMSys database records were created for the report, the type of form on which the report is to print, and the internal link name that ALMSys uses to link to reports (when viewing and printing).

It is important for you to understand that ALMSys does not keep an image of the report in the print queue; it only stores data records. ALMSys uses reports for all report viewing and printing. This means that if the report that you view is not in the correct sort order, you can change the sort order and simply view the report and it will be resorted for you. (In other words, you would not have to rerun the report.)

Print queue entries are only available to one ALMSys user at a time. The reports that you run go to your print queue and no one else can see them.

To view a report, click on it and press the View/Print Entry button. You may also double click on the queue entry or right click on the queue entry and select View/Print Entry from the menu.

There are a number of different ways to print a report. You may print a report when viewing it by pressing the print button (first icon at the top). You may mark the "X" column on the queue display and press the Print Marked button. You may press the Print All Entries button.

To delete a queue entry, click on it and press the Delete Entry button. You may also mark the "X" column on the queue display and press the Delete Marked button.  You may press the Delete All Entries button. Or, you may right click on the queue entry and select Delete Entry from the menu.

Print queue entries may be transferred to another user via the Move to Other User button.

Entries that appear in the list as reverse video and red indicate that the selection criteria has been overridden on the Report Options screen.

Reports may be exported in either a data format or in a report format. To export in a report format, you must first view the report and then press the export button (the button that looks like an envelope). There are a number of export formats available, but PDF (Adobe Acrobat® "Portable Data Format") is recommended. To export data only, press the Export Entry button. Again, there are a number of data formats available, but Microsoft® Excel® is recommended.

Any report that contains an account number may be requeried for a specific customer group ID. Use the Group Requery button to accomplish this task. See Group Requery for more information.

Any report that contains an account number may be requeried to retrieve name and address information. Use the N & A Requery button to accomplish this task. A new print queue entry will be created with this data. Why would you want to do this? One reason would be to export the resulting queue entry as data for mail-merge purposes.

Any report that contains an account number may have envelopes created. Use the Envelopes button to accomplish this task. The resulting envelopes will be placed into the e-mail queue and must be printed from there. (Note: Depending on the number of unique accounts in the print queue entry, you may have more than one e-mail queue entry created. This is due to a limitation of the size allowed for each e-mail queue entry.)

Reports can be adjusted for margins, or they can be modified to exclude certain criteria. The Report Options screen is used for these purposes. To get to the Report Options screen, right click on the queue entry and select Options.

E-Mailing Reports
ALMSys has the ability of e-mailing an entire report to one e-mail address (E-Mail Entry button) or breaking the report apart by customer and e-mailing the resulting pieces.

Any report in the print queue that contains an account number is eligible for splitting up into separate e-mails to the customers. In order for this to work, the customer must have an e-mail address specified (on either the Name & Address screen or on the General Deal screen), and the account and/or deal must be marked to be included when e-mailing reports.

After a report (such as Billing Statements) has been run and placed into the print queue, you may highlight the report and press the Split Into E-Mails button to begin the split. There are two options that you will be asked when splitting:

1. If a deal number appears on the report, you will have the option of splitting the queue entry by either the account number as a whole, or by the account-deal combination. The advantage to splitting only by account number will keep all deals for the same account together as one e-mail. You would definitely want to split only by account number when splitting Group Statements.

2. You have the option of removing split records from the print queue entry or leaving them there. If you are splitting statements, it is a good idea to remove them from the queue entry. That way when you print the statements, you will not have to pull the statements for those which have been e-mailed.

Again, only those customers with e-mail addresses will be split. As a result, individual "e-mail queue" entries will be created on the E-Mail Queue page. From that page, you will be able to generate the e-mails for the customers.

Condensing the Print Queue
The print queue should be kept as empty as possible. This becomes difficult in a multi-user environment.

When new queue entries are created, they are assigned the next sequential number after the last report number in the overall print queue. (The print queue holds entries for ALL users. You will only see your own entries.)  Unless all print queue entries are deleted from everyone's queue, the queue number assigned will continue to grow. This will only become a problem when this number approaches 32000.

Condensing the print queue will renumber all queue entries to start at 1. This will eliminate any gaps in the queue due to queue entries being deleted.

No one should be running reports or performing any task that will require a print queue entry until the condense has completed. It is best to just get everyone else out of ALMSys. The actual condense is a fairly quick procedure, depending on the total number of existing queue entries.

To condense the queue, select File - Condense Print Queue from the menu. Only those users with ability to change user security will be allowed to condense the print queue. The condense will show a progress meter and will inform you when it has completed.

If you interrupt the condense (via the Abort button), all remaining queue entries will be lost. So, please just wait until the print queue condense has completed.