SPLMON is a feature of CPPD which monitors one or more IBM i Output Queues for selected spooled files to be processed by CPPD.

The Spooled file monitor program is automatically started in the CPPD subsystem if the Spooled file monitor interface is set to 'Y'. (See Work with PPD parameters) As a spooled file is added (or released) to any specified output queue it is checked to see whether it is to be processed.

If the spooled file is to be processed the spooled file is selected and the specified PPD file is used to create a new spooled file.

Set up SPLMON

Firstly you need to enable the Spooled file monitor interface.  From the CPPD main menu, select Option 5 - Work with PPD Parameters and set the “Spooled file monitor” to 'Y'.

Now you need to set up the spooled file to be selected.  From the CPPD main menu, select Option 6 - PPD file maintenance and then Option 5 - Work with spooled file monitor.

Create a new entry for each spooled file you wish to monitor for. If you want to select all the spooled files going to the specified output queue, enter the Output Queue and Library names with *ALL in the File/User/User Data/Form Type fields. If you want to select all the spooled files having the same User enter the User Id in the User field (this also applies to the other fields). If you leave a field blank SPLMON will only select spooled files containing blank in that entry.

Note: SPLMON will only select matching spooled files if the status is 'Online'. Spooled files with a status of 'Offline' will not be selected. You can change the status while the subsystem is running. The subsystem must be stopped and restarted when adding a new output queue to be monitored.

Having entered the details of the spooled files to be selected, press 'enter'. The next screen allows you to enter a Description. Use F10 on this screen if you wish to specify a data queue other than SPLMON to run the job, effectively starting another SPLMON task in the CPPD subsystem.

When starting the SPLMON program CPPD automatically assigns the data queue SPLMON in library CPPD for each Print Output queue for which there is an 'Online' entry in Work with spooled file monitor' maintenance.

Note: DO NOT specify an Output Queue for use with SPLMON which already has a data queue assigned, this is because the data queue records are deleted as soon as they are read, and are therefore not available to two systems. Instead you can setup a new output queue and divert the appropriate spooled files to it.