Tracking External Jobs with Scheduler Job Management using FILTER

Products

• Scheduler Job Management

Issue/Introduction

Every site has z/OS batch jobs that must be tracked like a production job but are submitted by something other than the job management product. For example, a payroll job stream in Scheduler may need to wait on a job that is submitted by a CICS transaction when the HR department has finished entering overtime hours.

Scheduler has the ability to track jobs submitted outside of Scheduler by using the $MVS table. The $MVS table has a list of job names that should be tracked. When Scheduler sees a JOBINIT for one of these jobs it then tracks the job as if it had been submitted by Scheduler.

The $MVS table has some limitations:

• The table must be assembled by a site's system programmer when changes are made
• Scheduler must be restarted when changes are made to the $MVS table
• Scheduler is unable to differentiate between jobs with the same name

Consider the last bullet and the example above. Suppose Scheduler has a payroll job stream waiting for job PAYDONE to be submitted by the HR department's CICS transaction.  The problem is that any job called PAYDONE will satisfy Scheduler's requirement. For example, a TSO user could submit a job called PAYDONE, causing the payroll job stream to begin.

Scheduler "FILTERS" are a new method of tracking jobs submitted from outside Scheduler.  Filters do not have the limitations of the $MVS table.  

 

 

Resolution

 

Filters are defined to the Scheduler database and provide rules for which jobs should be tracked.

Steps to define a Filter:

1. Log on to Scheduler ISPF and select option 2 for Database, then option D FILTERS. 
2. Enter 4 to define a Filter.
3. On the FILTER definition panel, enter the Filter name.
4. In the Masks section, provide as much detail information about the job (or jobs) that you want to track.
5. In the Failure section you may specify a condition code test to determine if the job succeeds are not.
6. The job will be marked "Failed" if it ends with a return code that is greater than or equal to (GE) one.
7. Enter END (PF3) to save the filter definition.

Scheduler will automatically start using this filter definition at the next Autoscan. If you want the filter to be used prior to the next Autoscan, then use the REFRESH FILTER command (option 6).

When Scheduler sees a job start (JOBINIT) that matches the filter definition, it adds the job to the active workload in a schedule called $MVSxxxx where xxxx is the system id (SMF ID) on which the job executed.

Note: Jobs tracked using Filter look the same as jobs tracked by the old $MVS table.

Jobs and schedules defined to Scheduler can wait on external jobs by using the MVS criteria keyword.  Example:

    MVS PAYDONE

Note: You can change from using $MVS to filters and gain more security without having to change your existing criteria.