Viewing or Recalling Archived Reports with Web Viewer 12.1, 14.0

Products

• Output Management Web Viewer
• View

Issue/Introduction

You can view reports using Web Viewer if you have EAS or EMC Centera. You can recall reports using your own mainframe automation procedures, or you can disable access to archived reports.

Environment

• Output Management Web Viewer™ for z/OS
• Output Management Web Viewer 12.1
• Output Management View® for z/OS
• View®
• OM View for z
• EAS
• Output Management Distributed Repository Access System (DRAS)

Resolution

There are three different ways you may handle archived reports with Output Management Web Viewer.

1. Use EAS or Centera to view reports online.  NOTE that EAS is now included at no extra charge so this might be the best choice.  Note that EAS does not handle foreign tapes  (Dispatch).
2. Create and use your own automated procedures to recall the reports.
3. Disable recall of archived reports.

For Web Viewer 12.1

To define how you want to handle offline reports , configure the Off-line report access option by selecting for each repository

•  Administration tab
•  Repository
•  Click on the name of the repository
•  Select properties
•  Select Report

To define how you want to handle offline reports. Here are the three choices:

1. Disable recall of off-line reports
   Select Disable recall of off-line reports, if the repository does not support recall through DRAS or you wish to restrict recall by Web Viewer users.
2. Recall reports from off-line media, if supported
   With this option users can request the recall of offline reports.
   Recall will only work with a View system which has recall automation implemented.
3. View reports from off-line media without recall, if supported
   If you have EAS or Centera access enabled through View, your user can view offline reports without recalling them.

To configure Offline Reports, see Edit Repository Objects in the Output Management Web Viewer - 12.1 documentation.

Sites without EAS or Centera need to implement automation on the mainframe side to "look" for WTO messages from the DRAS task, for example, CAHATPR02. These messages include identifying report information so that automation can construct and submit a View batch job to recall the report. DRAS r11 and r11.5 have configuration options that allow the user to select which messages are echoed by WTO (i.e. the SAR messages issued when an offline report are accessed).

With this method 

1. The user accesses an offline report. 
2. Web Viewer prompts the user to recall the report.  
3. If the user chooses to continue, Web Viewer triggers the WTO message for the report and displays a confirmation message that the recall request has been submitted.  
4. On the mainframe side, View issues a SAR message which DRAS will echo via WTO (SET MESSAGE ECHO...).  
5. The mainframe automation package installed at this site must. 
   Look for this WTO message.
   Parse it for the required report information. 
   Construct a View tape recall batch job using the information.
   Submit the job.
   Now the user waits while occasionally refreshing the report list to see if the report has been reloaded from tape (there is no real-time feedback from the mainframe)
   Different messages may be displayed to the end user upon selection of a report depending on the access method selected and the actual circumstances. Several of these messages may be customized. 

For Web Viewer 14.0

To define how you want to handle offline reports. Here are the three choices:

1. OnLine Only
   Chose this option to disable access of archived reports 
2. EAS (EAS or EMC Centera required)
   Centera reports will show up as online in Web Viewer. Select this option if View repositories have either EAS or Centera access enabled. 
   NOTE: If the selected option is not supported by the remote repository, this setting will default to disable recall of off-line reports.  
3. Recallable (For sites without EAS or Centera) 
   Specifies that users can recall offline reports if the repository supports it. 
   NOTE: If the selected option is not supported by the remote repository, this setting will default to disable recall of off-line reports.  

See Automate the Recall of Offline Reports

This includes a sample REXX exec you can use to do your own automation.