Work With Form Sets

A form set is a method to select a form or check application to process a particular input spool file page based on the content of that spool page. Form sets allow the user to toggle between seperately defined form applications, so the result “stitches” together multiple defined form applications into a single defined form output application.

To create or change a form set go to menu IDOCS, take option

3. Work with Form Set Applications

Use F6 to create or select an existing form set with option 1.

This is the Form Set definition screen.

  5/01/18                     iDocs Form Suite                        FM0467C3  
 11:01:03                Define a Form Set Application                KKRAMER   
                                                                                
 Form Set Name: OFDEFEXTRA          Description..: Test Extra Last Page         
 Default Form:  OFDEF1      F4=List Burst Output(Y/N) : N                       
 or *NONE to preempt processing     Relative Duplex(Y/N) : N                    
                                                                                
       Type And/ Form        Relational                                         
 Prior (F/V) Or  Application Op     Trigger Value                    Begin  End 
  ity   F4   F4  F4=List     F4     F4=Map Trigger Value            Row Col Col 
    1   F        OFDEF2      =  1802021343                           10  14  23 
    2                                                                           
    3                                                                           
    4                                                                           
    5                                                                           
    6                                                                           
    7                                                                           
    8                                                                           
    9                                                                           
   10                                                                           
   11                                                                           
                                                                        More... 
 F3=Exit   F10=Extra Pages   F12=Cancel                               
                                                                                

Form Set Header Information

• Form Set Name: Name of the form set definition. Do not use embedded blanks. This is the name specified in the manual merge or engine definition.
• Description: Key a description. Embedded blanks permitted.
• Default Form: Name of the form or check application to process the current spool file page if no other application is selected via the tests below. Note that *NONE is not an acceptable entry.
• Burst Output: Close the spool file and open a new one when the form or check selected changes. Y or N. See Notes on Bursting.
• Relative Duplex: For form sets containing all form applications, that require relative duplexing this form application attribute may now be set at the form set level. This improves efficiency when dealing with spooled files. Relative Duplexing is required in those instance where spooled file data from the front side of the page needs to back mapped to the back side of the page. To accomplish this task, the form application itself needs contain mapped fields to both the front and back side for duplex, and either the relative duplexing settiing on the form application, or the form set needs to be set to 'Y'.

Form set Detail Information

• Priority: Order in which the tests are to be made.
• Type F/V: Test a Fixed location in the spool file or Variable location. When testing a Variable location, you may leave the Row, From Col., and To Col. fields blank to hunt for the Trigger Value throughout the entire spool page or you may enter a Row number and leave the To Col. and From Col. fields blank to hunt for the Trigger Value anywhere on the designated Row.
• And/Or: Used to create a multiline test.
• Form Application: Form or check application to be used to process the current spool page if the test returns true. Once a test has returned true and an application has processed the spool page, no further tests are made. The merge process advances to the next spool page.
• Relational Operator: Test to use with the specified trigger value and the spool file text. = is almost always specified.
• Trigger Value: The text value to test for at the row/col location specified. The values can be blanks.
• Begin Row/Col: Beginning row / column to look in the spool file page for the trigger text. Not used if the test type is V (variable location).
• End Col: Ending column of the spool file text in which to look for the specified trigger text.

• F10=Extra Pages: Add a last page macro i.e. Terms & Conditions after the last page of a form set print job (iDocs 6.91 4/30/2018 enhancement).

In the example above, the spool page is tested at row 5, column 15 for 10 characters that must match “REFERENCE ”. If the text matches, the form application ADVICE is used to process the spool page. If the characters are 5,15 - 24 do not match the trigger value “REFERENCE ”, the default check application CHECK is used to process the spool page. Output is not being burst, so one *USERASCII spool file is the output of the merge.

When specifying a form Set to an engine or performing a manual merge, ARCHECK, the form set name, is how the form set is referenced.

If one is toggling between forms in the form set that have differences in the core page attributes, such as page size or page orientation, it may be necessary both to set the form set to burst at the top as well as cause the all the individual forms to burst at the appropriate place in the spool file. This is done by selecting a mapped field in each form as the burst field and specifying bursting. The key point is to force a closing and reopening of the output spool file at the same point that the change in page attribute is to occur.

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