Exploring BPCS documentation.
This is a topic which has useful stuff in BPCS-L archives.
There are 3rd party doc support, superior to much of what comes with BPCS.
Your admin can probably tell you what BPCS documentation exists at your
company.
Most BPCS vanilla software have cursor sensitive help screens. That is
written in the UIM language.
Even if you not familiar with that language, the source code is pretty
intelligible.
For the programs associated with occasional lockups, there is often a
tangled web of programs calling programs, such that it is useful to print
out the associated help source code. Also screen images via SDA. This will
help you map everything the software is supposedly capable of, beyond the
obvious, because some of the official documentation is clear as mud.
If you have more than one BPCS environment, there may be a separate copy of
BPCSDOC with each.
The BPCSDOC file has members accessible via PDM, SEU, or whatever you use
for editing software.
I do not remember the exact name . something like SSALOG00?
There is a logic manual in there, for BPCS programming standards, and
exceptions to the rules, which explains a spectrum of issues relevant to
this BPCS-L thread.
There are SSARUN* members for each of the BPCS applications, but the one on
customer orders is so huge, it cannot be accessed by standard PDM SEU, but
there are work arounds. I split ours into smaller gulps, that could be
accessed by standard PDM SEU.
If you have BPCS user menus, in addition to vanilla BPCS, there is a command
option to maintain those menus, from the pop-up BPCS menu, accessible from
the user menus, which the admin may or may not have granted you access to.
The pop-up BPCS menu, accessible from vanilla menus, does not have as many
options - excluding those related to managing user menus. Once you get into
the user menu maintenance area, there is a command option which takes you to
the ability to edit most of the splash screen. We altered ours to include
something about our company motto, and how to get to our BPCS help desk.
By vanilla menus, I mean where you end up if you key in the 3 letters that
are the prefix on vanilla programs.
By pop-up menu, I mean a list of IBM access features, like messaging, spool
files, and other tools.
By user menus, I mean those that a BPCS-using company may have integrated
with BPCS.
Above the splash screen, there are some odd words.
Cursor onto one of those words, then press enter, leads to additional
interesting geeky stuff.
Your admin may have blocked access to that stuff.
You can get clues what BPCS version you really at by looking at the BPCS
source libraries, not all of which will be in the environment's library
list. Each patch collection from BPCS came with:
* A library of source code;
* A library of execution code.
* Instructions how to manage exceptions like how message members
replaced.
* Comments in source code, identifying from where came the updates .
the more complex the software, the more likely it needed to be patched .
ORD5* being the largest. So the most recent version of that probably shows
the last set of BPCS patches you have, which will nail down which BPCS
version you really are at.
Alister Wm Macintyre (Al Mac).
Panama Papers group:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8508998
midrange.com
