TSP03 table — Output Device Definitions Table

One row in TSP03 represents a single output device that has been defined in spool administration, typically a printer but also fax or file-based output destinations. The row carries the device's technical name, the device type that determines which print driver and formatting capability is used, the host spool access method that tells the spool work process how to reach the physical device (local, frontend, network protocol, or operating-system queue), a reference to the physical destination or host queue, and descriptive fields such as location text. Every spool request created in the system, and every background job step that specifies a printer, points back to a device name defined here. If the row is missing, misconfigured, or points at an access method the application server instance cannot actually use, output fails at the point of spool creation rather than at the printer itself.

TSP03 is a small table, typically a few hundred rows even in a large landscape, so selectivity is not the concern that it is with transactional tables. Always restrict on client and on PADEST for a specific device rather than scanning the whole table. Device definitions are maintained per client, so the same physical printer often has separate rows in different clients of the same system, and a device that works in the production client may simply not exist yet in a newly copied client. Do not assume a device name is globally unique across systems; it is only unique within a client.

Symptom: a user reports the output device is unknown or the print dialog rejects the device name. Select TSP03 where PADEST equals the device name in question, in the client the user is working in. No row returned confirms the device has never been created in that client and must be added or reassigned through spool administration. A row returned but with an empty or unexpected PACCESS value points at a configuration gap between the device definition and the actual host spool access method available on that application server.

TSP03 is Basis infrastructure, not application business data, and its structure and role are effectively unchanged between ECC and S/4HANA. Spool administration continues to be maintained the same way. There is no compatibility view layer over this table because it sits outside the business data model that CDS compatibility views were built to cover.

Ownership sits with Basis, specifically whoever administers spool and printing. Functional consultants raise the symptom (print output missing, device unknown, wrong format) but the device definition itself, its access method, and its connection to the physical printer are configured and corrected by Basis, in coordination with whoever manages the print server infrastructure.

TSP01 holds the actual spool requests that reference a device defined in TSP03. Background job control tables TBTCO and TBTCP carry print parameters for job steps that direct output at a device. Spool administration maintains TSP03 directly, and the spool request monitor is where consultants confirm whether a request that used a given device actually printed.