Exploring BPCS 405 CD Data Areas

from Al Macintyre on BPCS V405 CD & AS/400 V4R3 twinax without As/Set, 
TAATOOLS, nor Robot.

The basic scenario that this e-mail touches on is that sometimes end users 
have mishaps that get miscommunicated or not communicated to MIS, leading to 
messed up or contaminated data areas that are like booby traps waiting to 
explode the next user who is doing the same application from that work 
station.  

In our most recent scenario, there was some confusion regarding what exactly 
was messed up, leading to resetting correct work stations for SFC500 but not 
for MRP540.  I assumed, without looking myself, that someone else had reset 
what was applicable & accessible, and the someone else assumed, without 
knowing the application, that new shop orders come from SFC500.  So I 
unwittingly contributed to the creation of another mine field.

In our last big explosion, we knew enough not to use a particular work 
station until the mess there was figured out, so we went to do the billing on 
a work station that we thought was safe, then found out that it was not.

Our most common scenario are end user work stations with multiple sessions 
who "lose" their labor input batches & rekey them, but they really were on a 
different session than they thought they were on ... a week or so later, 
after the shop orders in the "lost batch" have been purged, an innocent user 
is keying another batch to that work station, which is doomed because SFC620 
JIT620 will bomb when it hits a gone order.  For this reason, we periodically 
print a list of what all is in unposted batches.

I would like to have a report listing current contents of all BPCS Data 
Areas, which compares each one's set of YNN flags & prints ***** to the side 
of the report when we hit one that is different from the previous pattern, 
with perhaps a control break when the first or second character changes, so 
we can see which data areas may be in need of a reset before the next 
surprise explosion.

I don't suppose anyone has already figured out how to do that?

There is no PRTDTAARA on GO CMDDTAARA & DSPDTAARA can *PRINT one but not *ALL 
or any range.  WRKDTAARA sees them all, but only one at a time.

Theoretically when users have something go wrong, there should be a 
communication of all the details to someone who knows how to clean up the 
debris, but all too often MIS is faced with an incomplete story, while the 
real culprits had a big sign of relief that after something that they did not 
understand, their stuff now seems to be working Ok.

Ideally there should be, like an end fiscal task, that says
WE ARE ALL DONE WITH THIS APPLICATION FOR THE MONTH
so reset 100% of BPCS work areas relevant to starting values
I don't suppose that any such thing exists & I have overlooked it?

Thinking about how to create a program to list all the BPCS data area 
contents, so as to illuminate which are currently armed land mines that we 
would like to disarm before the next crisis

1. CL DSPOBJD *ALL BPCSF *DTAARA to an *OUTFILE so we have an updated list of 
the current data areas that exist, for some program to look at one record in 
that *OUTFILE at a time.

2. Logical access Sort them by the work station part of the address & check 
if that *DEV actually exists in our configuration & DLTDTAARA for any devices 
no longer in our family.  With a very few exceptions, the format is 2 
characters of application (e.g. BL for billing) then the first 8 characters 
of the work station name (& woe betide any BPCS client site with work station 
names longer than 8 characters).

3. RTVDTAARA the contents of each of what we did not delete, logical access 
by application to generate list of what each looks like consecutively so as 
to illuminate what is not consistent.

Am I making logical sense, over complicating a non-issue, or missing 
something that would make this simpler?  Is there an SSA GT program that 
already does some of what I want.  Is there an SQL to select data from 
something other than files?

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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