Re: joblog outq management (was AW: Hiding spoolfiles from outq x)

Now that David says the archives are up again, you should try to access them 
because there has been a lot of discussion of related topics, but let me 
address the desired job log topic since we have been into this where I work.

We have applications that try to do their own error resolution.
Ideally we want errors recovered in a graceful way that will not burden the 
end users with having to be MIS experts to cope with error messages.
This means that IBM 400 OS does not recognize as a problem worthy of a job 
log, a problem that the application saw but perhaps did not handle as 
gracefully as we MIS would desire, so we need to give the task a human 
helping hand to ensure the generation of a joblog.

When a person signs off with the default SIGNOFF *NOLIST there will be no job 
log period.  When a job is killed or abnormally aborted, there will be a job 
log for sure, but the amount of useful information in there will depend on 
its *JOBD or CHGJOB when se discover that there is a problem.

We have a number of tasks with intermittent troubles for which we want a 
detailed job log of both instances where the tasks had no troubles & when the 
troubles occurred so we can analyse the differences.  I changed the *JOBD on 
the people who have these intermittent troubles, but I have been unable to 
persuade them to take the menu option that I added to their menus that have 
SIGNOFF *LIST, so I told management that until such time as the victims of 
these intermittent troubles can take the trouble to take the other signoff 
menu option that captures evidence on their session, then I do not have 
sufficient information to solve the problem.

In my experience it is only MIS people & power users who are able to remember 
to use the universal F1 help key or the SIGNOFF *LIST option, or when we want 
a job log on a JOBQ job, before running it to change our JOBD to have our 
JOBQ output on hold, then after launching it to JOBQ go into our JOBQ jobs & 
change that one with F10 second screen to *SECLVL (for look up convenience) 
and LOG *YES, then release it, then change our JOBD back to automatically run 
anything we put on JOBQ.

Another topic you might address is if the users normally are sendiing their 
output to a specific outq, instead of them accessing their data via WRKSPLF, 
do it via WRKOUTQ that outq ... we have outqs clustered by department, so the 
people see the work that their department is doing.

If you are in WRKSPLF or WRKOUTQ or a number of other screens & you explore 
the F24 options like F21-basic vs. the alternatives, the options associated 
with the other commands, the appearance of the screens, the options you can 
take when changing your spool entries, they are quite different & can take 
getting used to, which is why I encourage my users to try F21-all options to 
see which they personally are most comfortable with.

Some of my users do F21 switches in the middle of access because they prefer 
basic for some stuff & intermediate for others.  Think F10 F11 exploring 
what's what on your spool ... we heavily repopulate some of the fields for 
clarity of what's what ... there's also F22 & which printer you interested in 
with 8 to see where my printouts are in sequence with respect to everyone 
else's & F11 to see how many pages are ahead of mine.  Also ease of selecting 
which printer or outq to change a report to, or selecting a different user 
reports or outq to view.

My thinking is that perhaps you want to review the JOBD of job logs & see if 
they can be made OUTPTY-9 which means at the bottom of the pile of "reports"

MacWheel99@aol.com (Alister Wm Macintyre) (Al Mac)
AS/400 Data Manager & Programmer for BPCS 405 CD Rel-02 mixed mode (twinax 
interactive & batch) @ http://www.cen-elec.com Central Industries of 
Indiana--->Quality manufacturer of wire harnesses and electrical 
sub-assemblies - fax # 812-424-6838

> Hello,
>  
>  currently, we have no need to secure spoolfiles against unauthorized usage
>  (we had some secured outq's when payroll was
>  on our AS/400 - but that's been outsourced to SAP).
>  
>  Our users just get confused with all their joblogs cluttering up their
>  *normal* spoolfiles. So I'll give them the wrksplf with
>  assistance level *basic and see if they like it...
>  
>  But another joblog question: We have several job descriptions with error
>  logging turned on, but we don't always get a joblog.
>  Is there some kind of error flag that controls when a joblog is created? We
>  have a self-written menu system installed, that
>  every now and then reports a problem in an application, but I can't find a
>  joblog?
>  
>  Thanks, 
>  
>  Oliver



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