How can I leave sessions up?

[DaleGindlesperger@xxxxxxxxxxx]

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I have an problem that I sure hope others have run into and solved.  My
company works 24hr/day, 5 days/week, and uses MAPICS all the time,
although only inquiries are used interactively at night (2nd/3rd shift).
My IT department runs lights out from 5:30pm until 6am.  We run MAPICS
backups nightly using Help System's ROBOT (that's how we run the nightly
schedule, also) at 3:00am, when the factory is on lunch break.

I simply cannot get the users to sign off at night.  How I handle this is
to do the following:

1.  ENDSBS QINTER OPTION(*IMMED).
2.  Run a CL that disables all user-IDs that work at night (only inquiries
run at night).
3.  Use ROBOT to end all UMM jobs.
4.  CLRPFM AMFLIB/JOBACT  (I don't have a problem with batch jobs not
being done).
5.  STRSBS QINTER
6.  ROBOT runs backups
7.  Run a CL that enables all user-IDs that were disabled.
8.  Use ROBOT to restart the UMM jobs.

This has worked great, but I am in the process of implementing MDCC
(formerly Paperless Manufacturing).  I need to let users report time and
pieces on operations during the lunch break (not everyone takes lunch).
That means that I need to let the sessions stay up during backups.  I'm
not worried about the data not updating until after backups - that's not a
problem.  However, I am stumped on how to keep sessions up using my
current technique to be able to run backups.

As I see it, I have two options.

1.  Figure out a way to have some terminals (actually, PCs connected over
a LAN) run under a different subsystem, or
2.  Figure out a different way to get people off the system.

We have a union shop in the factory, and threats of reprimand and/or
termination don't work to get them to sign the terminals  off.  The
terminals are shared, and it's always "someone else's job" to sign them
off - I can't get accountability.

I realize this is as much an AS/400 question as a MAPICS one, but surely
out of the thousands of MAPICS shops out there, someone else has had to
come up with this answer by now.  At least, I hope so.

Thanks in advance,

Dale Gindlesperger
IT Manager
Fleetwood Folding Trailers, Inc.