Re: Inventory Month End Close

Hello,

1. What will get all interactive BPCS users off the system in Full
Client/Server is: ENDSBS 'YER_BPCS_subsystem_name' *IMMED - but that is
gnarly and mean. So.... I _wouldn't_ do this as a normal practice if users
are still in BPCS itself, as this could end jobs abnormally and screw up
your files.

I would first develop a procedure that is to be followed for Month End each
month. Then send out e-mails and urgent phone mails to BPCS users ahead of
time to remind them. On the day of, similarly notify users who are still on
the system and warn them of the impending doom at least an hour ahead of
when you will run the month end job. (This is because in GUI, an AS/400
break message to a user does not come up onto your PC screen).

You will have to manage to convey to your BPCS users that at 'x' time, they
know they are to exit BPCS for month end. Users who fail to do this, will
have to be killed by ending the subsystem. The subsystem can be restarted
later (since you probably need it to start the jobs running for Month end)
but, when you do this, don't start the normal daemons (or end them as soon
as they start up, if this is an autostart job). Instead, manually start
daemons to a new port that only the people who run month end know to connect
into, if you run this from the GUI. Month end users would change their
workstation settings to use the new port and then submit the job. That would
get rid of interactive users and prevent them from signing on again once
they were off.

Just remember that if any user is in BPCS and the job is doing file updates
when the subsystem is brought down. . . . they would potentially have messy
files to deal with the next day (and this in itself may affect Month end if
it is the files used by Month end) - so communication with users is key to
having this work smoothly.

 2. Then you would have to have MIS check your Batch BPCS jobq(s) and
subsystem(s) to ensure all jobs that affected BPCS files were also done
running. You would not want to end batch processes randomly. . . so, instead
you may want to hold any scheduled BPCS jobs during the month-end time.
(WRKJOBSCDE to check for jobs that may go off automatically, or if you use
Robot there is probably some other command to see this that your MIS should
know).

For example, ask MIS to put the entire Batch Job queue on hold a few hours
before month-end is due to start (but again INFORM your users first). If
your month end processing normally runs in this batch job queue, you could
then hold the individual BPCS jobs that users had submitted earlier in the
day by doing a WRKJOBQ, work with jobs and hold the individual ones with an
option 3. Then release the Batch job queue itself to allow the Month end
processing to go forward.

Or better yet, the Month End users would change their workstation settings
so that the batch jobs for Month End are submitted to a special job queue
that only Month End uses -- and leave the normal Batch job queue on hold
until Month End is done running.

Just a few ideas. . . individual solutions will depend upon the details of
how you run BPCS on your site and where. . .

Thanks

Genyphyr Novak
SSA



-----Original Message-----
From: Ben Colletti <bcollett@tokheim.com>
To: BPCS-L@midrange.com <BPCS-L@midrange.com>
Date: Tuesday, February 01, 2000 4:54 PM
Subject: Inventory Month End Close


>Here's my problem.
>We are using version 6.1, client server, on an AS400.  Every month when I
try to
>run the inventory month end close program (INV903) it does not successfully
>complete.  When I ask out MIS manager why, he tells me that there probably
is
>someone on the system.  I have asked him to shut down the system to all
users
>except myself while this program is run but for some reason he can't figure
out
>how to do that.  I'm not a techie but there must be a way that I can run
this
>program on a regular monthly basis and be assured that it will successfully
>complete.  Does anyone else out there have this problem and how can it be
>solved?  Please answer in language that an idiot like me can understand so
I can
>relay it to MIS.
>Thanks,
>Ben Colletti
>bcollett@tokheim.com
>Materials Manager
>Gasboy International Inc.
>
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