The utility always requires the UTPRINT data set if sorting is necessary.
The presence of this data set tells the utility to report sort messages. However, the actual messages for each sort process appear in separate SYSnnnnn data sets, where nnnnn is a system-assigned sequential number. You cannot specify a sequential or partitioned data set for UTPRINT. UTPRINT supports only SYSOUT data sets.
JES3 users should be aware of a limitation within JES3 that does not allow concurrent tasks to share SYSOUT data sets. This limitation means that you cannot use additional sort routine reporting DDs (other than UTPRINT) if they are defined as JES3 SYSOUT data sets and when the utility is multitasking its sort activity. If you attempt to use an unsupported DD, you risk S1FB abends when concurrent sort tasks are running.