Printing in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud System

This blog provides an overview on setting up and operating printers in the S/4HANA Cloud system using the SAP Cloud Print Manager.

In the S/4HANA Cloud system, you can enable Cloud printing in Fiori apps via print queues. The print queues are directly associated with the SAP Cloud Print Manager. Cloud Print Manager (CPM) is a windows software that runs on a Windows PC and is used to print business docs from S4HANA Cloud (or Business ByDesign) to the printer on local network. CPM needs to be set up in your local network to establish a connection to a local printer (you choose the relevant printer while configuring the SAP Cloud Print Manager). The CPM software fetches prints jobs from the print queues on the S4HANA cloud.

The architecture of the SAP Cloud Print Manager is provided.

As you can see, the Cloud Print Manager service continuously polls the cloud system using WebService URL / Print user / password and port 443, so you should open the firewall port.
You require a technical user for the SAP Cloud Print Manager to log on to the system via the internet. The technical user is the print user that is created when creating a print queue in “Maintain Print Queue” app. This is usually done by a key user in your company.

Downloading and Installing SAP Cloud Print Manager

You can download the SAP Cloud Print Manager for automatically printing yor documents from the Download Center view in Application & User Management work center. It is recommended to install SAP Cloud Print Manager on a Central Windows Print Server on your network and must be available all the time or at least during the time printing is needed.
Prerequisite

Please ensure the following prerequisite conditions are met:

• You have admin rights on the Windows computer
• Only authorized users access the folder – C:Users<User Name for Cloud Print Service>AppDataRoamingSAPCloud Print Manager, if you are printing sensitive documents.

You can refer the following link: Cloud Print Manager Installation and Configuration for more information on:

1. Downloading the SAP Cloud Print Manager
2. Installing the SAP Cloud Print Manager
3. Troubleshooting Tips

Note that multiple printer support in SAP Cloud Print Manager will be restricted to three printers.

Creating the Print queue

You can create the Print Queue first, which is required to configure the settings for Cloud Print Manager.
Select Fiori app from Group –> Output Management – > Maintain Print Queue (Fiori Tile). You need authorization for Output Management with Catalog ID SAP_CORE_BC_OM.

You will view the Maintain Print Queues screen as below:

In the above screen please note there is always a print queue by name DEFAULT, but it can never print to the Cloud Print manager. The purpose of DEFAULT queue is for sending any output that does not have queue defined. Also please note that the print queues do not belong to a specific business user but a “Technical” User.

To add new print queue, click “New” in above screen.

You can enter the Queue Name, Description, and then click New Print User.

In the Create Print User screen, enter the Name of the print user, Description and Password (password must contain at least one special character) and click Create.
Please note down this user name and password as it is needed for the Cloud Print Manager configuration in next step. The Print User above is a Technical user and is used by the Cloud Print manager to log into the cloud system via the internet.print
In the New Print Queue – previous screen, keep format as PDF. With this setting as PDF, the Cloud Print Manager converts format to whatever is needed by Windows Printer. Click on (4) Create.
A Queue will be created as shown below:

At the bottom of this screen click System URL that we will use in the next step to configure the cloud print manager.

Configure Cloud Print Manager

Start the SAP Cloud Print Manager either from path mentioned before or alternatively for routine access, click on (1) Search icon and type (2) “sap cloud print” to locate the application. Select (3) SAP Cloud Print Manager and right click to select (4) “Run as Administrator”.

When you start Cloud Print Manager for the first time you should start it with “Run as administrator” rights, otherwise, the following message appears.

You can provide the details of the domain in the next step, either the domain name for domain accounts or computer name for local accounts, the User and Password.

Note: If there is no Windows domain user available please refer Note 2718588 – How to maintain the service account for SAP Cloud Print Service without a Windows Domain.
If previous step is successful, the SAP Cloud Print Manager screen appears. Select Runtime Systems > New.

In the next screen, you can provide the details of (1) name of the system; example STARTER, TEST or PRODUCTION system. Enter (2) URL from previous step https://my300429.s4hana.ondemand.com and (3) click Test Connection.

If you get the “Connection test successful” message, the connection information is saved. After a few moments, CPM automatically displays all the print queues assigned to the print user.
In a few moments you should see the Print Queues.

Note: If you receive the error: “The requested key container was not found”,
please refer Note 2690882 – Cloud Print Manager: (error: The requested key container was not found.)
You can also refer SAP Note 2616159 – SAP Cloud Print Manager Log Files
If connection test is not successful and you get the following error, check if the firewall port is open and also check the proxy server settings, if required.

In this case, please go to menu option Help-> About and then click the Error Log to view the details of the error.

Log shows details below: (26.09.2019 11:34:51)*** ERROR ***[7]Unable to connect to the remote server WebException from GetAllPrintQueues webservice, System = SAP_Q_System*****[GetAllPrintQueues in PrintQueueAccess.cs at line 282 ]***** (26.09.2019 11:34:51) *** ERROR ***[7]Connection Test: Unable to connect to the remote server***** [ TestThread in ConnectionTester.cs at line 239 ]***** If the issue is not resolved please attach the error log to the ticket.
You can assign the Windows Printer to a Print Queue in the next step. Select the print queue in the Print Queue section and right click to select Output Options. In the Output Options dialog, select the checkbox Send to Printer, then select the printer from popup. Click OK.

This will change default format “PDF” to the windows printer as shown in next screen (1).

If you click SAP Cloud Print Watcher and click Start Service, this service starts the Cloud Print Service.
If the service aborts unexpectedly, please do not create multiple “Runtime Systems” with same URL + User combination as shown below.

Above situation will create issues and error in the log
(26.09.2019 20:57:56) *** ERROR *** [7] GetMetaData returned an empty item. System = S4HTESTDUPL Queue = CPM_Q_TEST_3 ***** [ RetrieveDocuments in RetrievalManager.cs at line 1088 ] *****

Printing a test document

At this point it is good to confirm that print queue to physical printout is working. Click on Fiori app Maintain Print Queues and select (1) the print queue and click (2) Change.

Click Create Test Page.

You should get the physical paper printout.
This completes the Cloud Print Manager configuration.

Classic List Printing via Proxy Printer

In “classic” applications, printing is enabled via so-called proxy printers, which are “placeholders” for print queues. Proxy printers are automatically created daily in the backend system, so there is no need to create or modify them manually.
When you print in those applications, the document is sent to the proxy printer, which transfers it to a print queue. That is why the name of the proxy printer and the print queue are typically identical.
In the end, when you are about to print a document, you simply choose the respective print queue, and the SAP Cloud Manager fetches the document from it and sends it to the printer.
In addition to existing features like support for multiple printers, SAP Cloud Print Manager is enhanced with following features:
1. Allowing login with your business user
2. Storing documents anywhere in file directory etc.
3. Cleaning up file directory.
4. Resetting all print queues to factory default.

Currently the printing solution is only available on Windows platform. CPM must be installed on a Windows based computer (Windows 7/8/10, 32-bit/64-bit) as a Service. One CPM can handle printing to all printers like Invoice Printer, Check printer, Purchase Order printer, etc.
Output Management with S/4HANA Cloud requires CPM to enable automatic transmission and printing of documents from cloud-based system to local printers.
CPM tool only works with print queues which do not exist in on-premise and cannot work with spool, so CPM cannot be used with On-Prem.