Re: INV903 question -- BPCS-L

From Al.Mac - BPCS 405 CD mixed mode may be dramatically different, but as I 
understand it INV903 is a subset of the INV900 process in which there are an 
abundance of ways in which things can go wrong when run in vanilla mode, so I 
shall try to summarize the main issues for us.

Our users often sign on to multiple sessions & depending on user profile 
settings, if you are doing stuff from a secondary session, you have less 
access to messages in general & QSYSOPR than from your primary sign on ... I 
suggest that this be run from your primary & that the user have security 
access to totally bypass BPCS to get at QSYSOPR message queue if desirable.

The reason for this is that INV90* locks up access to many many files, and 
BPCSMENU moving from one menu to another needs access to some of them, so you 
can be in situation of needing to get to that message to answer it, but if 
you move from the menu that launched INV90* then you lock up both INV90* and 
the session you are on.

There is a screen for selection of what media this is to go on & it is 
non-obvious to the user what is volume-id or device-id & you better have the 
right media ready because if this sucker fails because wrong media specified 
or volume-id mismatch, you can have a devil of a job recovering the task.  I 
have altered our screen defaults to take that decision making out of the 
hands of the user running this thing, but the user still has the ability to 
mess it up.

Invariably we have scenarios in which cycle count requests have not been 
taken to a conclusion & right after filling in the screen to run this INV90* 
job string, there is the screen about cycle counts & if you answer a question 
wrong, the whole thing comes to a grinding halt & you not know that it has 
ended abnormally for you, because BPCS assumes you know what you are doing.

You are not going to get this second panel if there are no unfinished cycle 
counts, which could easily be the situation on your test environment.  Most 
of our unfinished cycle counts are due to float in how we handle some 
transactions ... something drives some inventory negative & BPCS flips a 
cycle count flag, then our float catches up & the inventory is positive or 
zero & we are happy with the numbers, but that BPCS cycle count flag is still 
on.

After the cycle count screen, almost immediately there is a message on 
QSYSOPR asking you if you have the right media in the tape drive & if you do 
not answer that question right, you just ended the INV90* job.

Ours takes about 2-3 hours to run, so if if finished in under 1 hour we know 
something went wrong.  We do a SAVE-21 backup very close before starting this 
thing.

>  From:    DMunro@badgerminingcorp.com (Dennis Munro)
>  
>  Running BPCS Ver.6.0.02 plf, Mar'98 cum, full client/server on a 9406 S20 
at
>  V4R4M0 fairly current on "all" ptf's.
>  
>  When I ran INV903 at September Month End through my automated process, it
>  didn't run.  I was able to run it manually from BPCS - I think & I really
>  don't remember how I did run it.  But I know it was run.  
>  
>  I am now running/testing my "automatic" program on my test machine (same
>  config as above except it is a 720) & it did not run.  INV903B & INV903D 
are
>  in the BPCSO & BPCSPTF libraries only on both machines.  Nether machine has
>  an object named INV903x in my BPCSBMR library.  When running INV903
>  interactively, I noticed that I don't see the second panel.  I fill the
>  parms in on the first panel, click OK, & within a couple of seconds, I have
>  the menu back.  The second panel has the parm that is checked "Continue 
with
>  Month End Procedure".  At least it did a year or so ago when I wrote the
>  computer work instructions & captured screen prints.  I now don't see that
>  panel & I don't remember if it is check by default or not?  Must not be
>  because the process stops almost immediately after clicking OK on panel 
one.
>  
>  Something must have changed & I not sure where to look.  If I changed
>  something, I don't remember & certainly didn't mean to????  I changed all
>  the BPCS job descriptions to log the CL & nothing jumps out at me when
>  looking through the job log.  INV903B is called with parms being passed in,
>  a bunch of RTVMSG's are executed from CLMSG, then a RCLRSC LVL(*CALLER) 
from
>  line 14 of INV903C & that's that.  I can't RTVCLSRC of INV903C because the
>  source is not available so I have no idea what it is trying to do.
>  
>  Looking through the INV903B AS/SET code, I see BMR 6862: "Added call to cl
>  program INV903C to reclaim resources to alleviate file locks caused by SQL
>  open data paths not being deleted." 
>  
>  Looking through the INV903D AS/SET code,  INV903B only runs if either of 
the
>  items on the second panel are checked (I can't check them because I don't
>  see that panel) otherwise there is an EXTPGM.
>  
>  Looking through OGS I found 23 BMR's listed when searching using INV903.
>  None are my situation.
>  
>  I've thought about it being a security issue, but why only this one object?
>  The user profile that runs month end is a BPCS security officer.
>  
>  Any clues as to what I'm missing??? 
>  
>  Dennis
>  
>  Dennis Munro
>  Badger Mining Corporation
>  dmunro@badgerminingcorp.com
>  www.badgerminingcorp.com
>  (920) 361-2388 


Alister William Macintyre 
Computer Data Janitor etc. of BPCS 405 CD Rel-02 on 400 model 170 OS4 V4R3 
(forerunner to IBM e-Server i-Series 400)  @ http://www.cen-elec.com Central 
Industries of Indiana--->Quality manufacturer of wire harnesses and 
electrical sub-assemblies

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