Desktop management of host applications

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This application relates to the automated management of a complex environment wherein that environment includes a network in which host applications are run at one or more nodes and management activities are run at other nodes, which may be desktop devices.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

Several patent applications filed concurrently herewith relate to the invention herein. They are patent application Ser. No. 08/334,592 entitled, "Instrumented Components for Accessing Complex Object-oriented Data Files" now U.S. Pat. No. 5,546,577; patent application Ser. No. 08/334,948 entitled "Client Network Interface"; and patent application Ser. No. 08/334,810 entitled "Table Driven Graphical User Interface".

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The desire to develop control technologies in order to produce end-products more efficiently, or more cheaply, or of higher quality has existed for many years. Machines utilizing mechanical controls, hydraulic controls, or pneumatic controls were developed in the eighteenth century. With the advent of electrical technology, the increased ability to control the movement of work pieces from one work station to another down conveyor lines enabled a significant advance in the cost, efficiency and quality objectives of control technology. With the development of computers, particularly general purpose computers, control technology became much more flexible. Improvements in the control of a process could be effected by changes in software, as opposed to changes in hardware which were necessary on the earlier systems. Also, computer technology brought about the ability to automate processes not previously subject to machine control. For example, accounting work that was previously done by hand with the aid of simple adding machines or other calculating devices of that sort were automated by computerized systems to produce end-products in a much more efficient and less costly manner. The preparation of documents has been automated to some extent by the use of word processors. Generally speaking, computers have enabled the automation of information processes much the same as in an earlier day the electrical technology enabled the automatic movement of work pieces down a conveyor line.

The continued development of semi-conductor technology has enabled enormous computing capacity in very small computing elements. As a result, microprocessors have found use within machinery as control elements, replacing cams and gears and relays and other such devices of the previous control technologies. As a result the flexibility of programmed microprocessors is now available in many types of equipment. With microprocessor control of machines so pervasive, there occurs the need that various types of equipment in a work process be tied together and report to various processors which can manage the overall operation. Management may occur at the process level, i.e., to send a work piece from one work station to another and perform the operations called for, and it can occur on an information level as well, i.e., for example, processes can acquire information about machines so that they can be maintained prior to a breakdown, processes can schedule jobs, maintain inventories and automatically perform other accounting functions.

The particular complex environment in which the current invention was developed is the large mail room operation. In such an operation a variety of documents must be printed, fed along conveyor lines for correlation with other documents to comprise the particular mailing, through devices which may trim the documents, fold them, place them in envelopes and place them on trays. The envelopes will have a printed address so that a weighing mechanism may determine the postage that is needed and place the postage on the envelope. There are machines to sort mail according to zip codes and by walk sequence, i.e., the sequence that a mail carrier will follow delivering mail along a particular route. Finally, the outputs may be boxed according to the location to which they are sent and delivery automatically ordered for the next airplane leaving for that location.

In the large mailroom, information about recipients might be included in a database. For example, certain mailings may go to those people who are known to enjoy golf and other mailings may go to people who are in the dental profession. Some mail room operators may wish to track the effectiveness of marketing promotions. For example, people in a certain area might be targeted to receive a discount on an item and coupons for those people would receive a certain bar code. Another area might receive a different discount and have a different bar code. Later, once the coupons are returned, data relating the amount of interest developed by the promotion can be accumulated by reading the bar codes and automatically producing the reports.

As may be observed from the above description the amount of data which is organized in large mail room operations is enormous. It is not unusual for these operations to include banks of computers, banks of data storage equipment, various types of printers from many different manufacturers and complex inserting equipment capable of merging documents from several paths into one stack, folding, cutting, inserting, franking, sorting, and packaging.

In the current environment marks may be placed on the paper in a certain location so that scanning those marks can trigger the correct operation to direct that particular paper along its route to its destination in the proper envelope. Such marks can be on each page of a document or they can be on header pages. Such marks might require the trimming of a document before it is actually sent out to a customer.

FIG. 1 shows a simplified configuration that is utilized at the current time in print mail room facilities. The print job originates with application processes on a host 16 which is typically a large mainframe computer, making use of database facilities attached to the host. The generated print stream is converted into a device specific data stream and sent to the controller 11A of printer 11 for production of documents. An unwinder mechanism 10 is used to unwind rolls of paper and feed the paper into the printer 11. The printer output is passed to a folding machine 12 and organized on trays 13. The tray 13 is moved manually to provide input to a second line of machinery which may include devices to cut and trim the stacks of paper into individual documents and feed the documents through an inserting machine 14. Inserting machines are complex devices under the control of a microprocessor based controller 14A. The inserter may also receive documents from other document feeding devices and envelopes from another printing source for inserting the proper group of documents into a properly addressed envelope. The envelope may then pass through a franking machine and through sorting apparatus before being placed on trays 15 from which the properly sorted mail is packaged and sent off to the Post Office. An important advantage of the configuration as shown in FIG. 1 is that the printer line is separated from the inserter line of machinery. As a consequence the problems of matching the speed of these two lines is eliminated and printers are not held up by the operations of the inserters or vice versa. Such a configuration also makes the printer available for non-mail jobs. One of the important disadvantages is that marks are needed on each document or at least on header papers to correctly move the job through the equipment and into the proper envelope.

FIG. 2 shows a coupled configuration which is also in use at the current time. Again, the print job originates in the host 16 and in its large database and the print stream is sent to the controller 11A of printer 11. In this configuration an unwinder mechanism 10 unwinds a roll of paper for feeding to a printer 11, the output of which is directly coupled to the inserter line 14. The advantages of this type of configuration is that a folding machine 12 in the printer line is eliminated. Only a single operator is needed and the output of the printer is packaged for immediate mailing. An important disadvantage is that the operations of the inserter and the printer must be speed matched. Also, in this configuration the printer is dedicated to mail applications and the system is only as reliable as its weakest link. Marks on the paper are still needed to coordinate the documents from a printer with envelopes fed into the inserter from a different document feeder.

FIG. 3 shows a system which may be termed an intelligently coupled configuration. This system is similar to the configuration shown in FIG. 2 except that the controller 11A for the printer and the controller 14A for the inserter are enabled to exchange information so that as documents are printed, the printer can inquire if the inserter is ready. If it is, then the printer can send the document on to the inserter. This system enables the printer to communicate with the host 16 that originates the print job and provide the host with information about the inserting equipment that is connected to the printer. As a consequence, the system is enabled to ascertain the capabilities present on the equipment in the print path. This system also enables processes running on the host to advise the printer and the other equipment in the path when a job begins and when a job ends so that the need for marks on the paper is diminished or completely eliminated. This system also provides an error recovery operation such that if a job is completed without incident that can be recorded. This system provides software control over the process but still retains certain disadvantages. For example, the speed between the printer and the inserter still must be matched. The entire line is only as reliable as its weakest link and the printer is dedicated to mail applications.

FIG. 4 shows a network coupled configuration for which this invention is designed. The print jobs originate with application processes at a host 16 for generating a print stream sent to the controller 11A of a printer 11 in much the same manner as the other configurations described above. In this system, FIG. 4 shows an unwinder mechanism 10 is used to unwind rolls of paper and send them to a printer 11. It should be noted that paper input to the printer could be from cut sheet document feeders, a continuous form feeder or any other type of paper feeder. The output of the printer 11 is sent to a medium modifier 17 which may be, for example, a mechanism to imprint a color plate on a medium, or make a perforation cut o