Got "HASP148 Job group not found” when JOBGROUP is used in ESP submitted JCLs

Products

• ESP Workload Automation

Issue/Introduction

When the user uses the ESP SUBMIT command in ESP Event definition, like below:
EVENT ID(ESP.EVENTA)  SYSTEM(-)  REPLACE
SUBMIT 'ESP.JCLLIB(JOBA)'

JCL for JOBA, normally the JOB card is the first statement in the JCL, but for this case, there are statements to define the JOBGROUP. 

//JOBGRPX  JOBGROUP (xxxxxxx),'TEST-JOBGROUP'
//TESTJOB1  GJOB
//TESTJOB2  GJOB
//          AFTER NAME=TESTJOB1
//TESTJOB3  GJOB
//          AFTER NAME=TESTJOB2
//JOBGRPX  ENDGROUP
//JOBA     JOB (xxxxxxxx),'TEST-JOB' 

The JOB failed with JCL ERROR and HASP148 when submitted by ESP:
IEFC452I DCFI10T1 - JOB NOT RUN - JCL ERROR 
....
HASP148 Job group not found

Will ESP simply send the JCL to JES or it may read thru the JCL and skip the statements BEFORE the JOB card?

Environment

Component: ESP Workload Automation
Release: ALL

Resolution

ESP parses the JCL specified on SUBMIT only for the JOB card (and its subcommands), but ignores the statements like JOBGROUP.

Workaround: Use IEBGENER to submit the job with JOBGROUP. Here is an example:
//JOBA     JOB
//STEP10   EXEC PGM=IEBGENER                               
//SYSUT1   DD DISP=SHR,DSN=ESP.JCLLIB(JOBA)  
//SYSUT2   DD SYSOUT=(A,INTRDR)                            
//SYSIN    DD DUMMY                                        
//SYSPRINT DD SYSOUT=*