Using PDS or PDSE as external trigger dataset

Products

• CA 7 Workload Automation

Issue/Introduction

When defining a PDS or PDSE to the external tracking table (SASSXDSN), CA 7 only triggers the job if the PDS or PDSE is updated by a batch job. If I update the data set using TSO EDIT, CA 7 will not trigger the job. What causes this behavior?

Environment

WA CA 7 Edition

Resolution

PERFORM value of 6 specified on the INIT statement in the CA 7 initialization deck prevents CA 7 from processing SMF type 15 records for data sets with Organization of PO  (PDS or PDSE). CA 7 will received the SMF type 15 record, but it will discard it. 

To allow CA 7 to process SMF type 15 records for a PDS or PDSE, you would need to remove perform option 6 from the INIT statement below. 

INIT,TYPE=WARM,CONFIG=(MVS,JES2),RUNOPT=SCAN,PERFORM=(1,5,6,7,8)

We do not recommend this due to the possible amount of records that can be created by a PDS.

Additional Information

The reason this process work when using a batch job is the batch job will process the dataset as a sequential file and therefore the PDS indicator is not on in the SMF type 15 record and CA 7 will process it regardless of the PERFORM 6 option.