• Decide how many printers you will use.
• Ensure LPR/LPD options are established for how output should be printed.

  What LPD options does each printer support? What LPR options should the Network Print Facility process when sending a job to the printer?

• Decide who should have the authority to interactively access the routing, options, and queue files. Who should be able to change destinations and print options? Who should be able to look at the status of print jobs and who should be able to change or delete them? By default, all interactive users can update the routing, options, and queue files. If you have the Resource Access Control Facility (RACF®), you can use it to prevent access or allow read-only or read-write access for the appropriate users.
• Decide how you can effectively implement the routes you require.

  Should jobs be sent to one printer or to multiple homogeneous printers? Homogeneous printers are printers with identical LPR options. These can be similar printers with different locations or destinations. For more information about homogeneous printers, see The options file and The routing file.

• Assign major and minor names for routing records. Major and minor names are the keys that the Network Print Facility uses to route print output. See the parameter descriptions in EZAPPFL TYPE=ROUTING for valid specifications.
• Decide how to handle host name resolution. The routing records can specify an internet name or an IP address as the destination. If an internet name is specified, this name will have to be resolved by the Domain Name Server each time an output file is sent.
• Decide if you want to include an option to access the Network Print Facility on the ISPF Primary Option Menu
• Decide whether you will be using the NPF FSS writers or the VTAM® capture point, or both.
• Define the Network Print Facility queue management function:
  • Decide how to handle output that does print successfully. Do you want to delete the job immediately? Do you want to retain the job for a period of time for future use?
  • Decide how to handle output that does not print successfully. Do you want to resend the data? If so, how many times do you want to attempt to resend? How often to retry? How long do you want to retain the file after all attempts to resend have failed?
  • Be prepared to specify these criteria in the file creation macros and on the panels.
• Determine if user exits are necessary. If so, create them and plan to specify them appropriately in the macros and on the panels.
• Plan to allocate adequate space for the routing, option, queue, and active VSAM files before using the file creation macros.
• Decide if you will use the various EZAPPFL macro functions to just initialize or to initialize and load the routing and options files.
• Decide whether you will update the routing and options files using the various functions of the EZAPPFL macro or the ISPF interface. The samples provided with the EZAPPFL macro show how to update the routing and options files in batch mode. Maintaining the Network Print Facility files with ISPF shows how to update them using the ISPF interface.

See the Checklist of the NPF tasks for all users (JES or VTAM) for a list of items to check as you begin to use the Network Print Facility.