Job view during a production cycle

There are several subsets of jobs to choose from when looking at jobs. All of these views provide detailed information about the status and progress of each job.

PCS provides an integrated view of your jobs. From this panel you see job information from the point of view of PCS, JES2 and CA 7. Filter and Sort the jobs to get the subset of jobs of interest to you at any one time. Use the Find and Locate commands to zero in on a particular job.

You can change the defaults or options for any of the jobs on the list you are viewing.

You can drill up to see the paths to which a job belongs, and to see all the jobs on the paths to which a job belongs.

Besides the information on the job view panel you can access further "progress" information which answers the questions: "What are this job's preceding jobs?", "What are this job's preceding culprit jobs?", "What other jobs are affected by this job?", "Why does this job have the acceptable time it does?", "Why is this job a culprit?", "Why is this job late?", and "Why hasn't this job completed?". This sub-dialog is covered under the G-Progress line command.

For the job view you can start with:

• All the job instances in the battle plan,
• Job instances in a particular installation list,
• A list of customized jobs (i.e., jobs that had any of their defaults or options set at the job level (i.e. at the L4 or L8 level).
• A list of incomplete culprit job instances, if any exist, or
• A list of unconfirmed demand job instances. See Demand Job List for the context of this view.

Tip: Before completing your choice you can set the filter to restrict the subset displayed (and prevent the lengthy loading of the whole set). See the Filter command in the next section for the details.

Most of the menu options, commands and columns are common across the different job views. We illustrate the All Job Instances in the Battle Plan option and explain the variations for the other views.

Recall that a battle plan consists of jobs belonging to an application in either manage or monitor mode and:

• Whose header jobs are submitted by CA 7 during the production cycle associated with battle plan. These jobs are detected by the PCS Forecast Collection Utility and added to the AMD; thus they are "expected".
• Are inherited from a former battle plan because they have not completed.
• Or, are not scheduled and have been "demanded in" by CA 7. They are not "expected" and PCS treats them as ad hoc jobs.

View/Edit All Job Instances in Battle Plan

The View/Edit Active Battle Plan Job Instances panel is very wide. We recommend setting your screen to 132 characters to see as much of the data as possible. Remember to scroll left to see the rest of the fields. Here's the first columns:

and here are the other right hand columns:

You can easily see the "lateness" of the job instances:

• Red is used to highlight the job instance id and the expected or actual ending date and time when the job instance is late;
• Yellow is used when a job instance will be late;
• Pink is used when it was late.

White is used when the job is Not in BP, i.e., it is part of the application view, but not actually running in this battle plan. It is also used for ad hoc jobs. White screen text is shown in black in this manual.

Column headings

There are over 25 fields for each job instance. (Be sure to use a wide screen and scroll left and right to see all the information.)

The columns can be grouped as to their origin/purpose:

• Context information from the AMD - the job instance id and application name are the main identifiers with the MM column telling you the mode of the application the job belongs to. The HT tells you where this job fits in the path structure or if it's a single job. Number of paths tells you how it fits in the application structure from the job point of view. A non-blank rpt num tells you if this is a repeating job. This information does not change as the workload progresses.
• JES2 information - look at the status field and details to see JES2 information from a CA 7 point of view. This information is updated as the job progresses.
• CA 7 information - look at the CA 7 Status and CA 7 job number to see the job from a CA 7 point of view. This information is updated as the job progresses. The CA 7 due-out time is also displayed if populated in the CA 7 database.
• Context of the running workload - the CP, urgent path (rerun factor and slack time), job progress, and rpt num fields all provide context of this job with respect to the other jobs running. This information is updated as the workload progresses.
• Lateness information - all of these fields reflect something about the lateness of this job: start time, job elapsed time, step elapsed time, ending time, acceptable time, target time and NL-never late. Expected times are displayed, based on experience data and the progress of the rest of the workload until the actual times are available.

Job Instance ID

The name is in red if the job instance is late and has not yet completed; yellow if the a job instance will be late; and pink if the job instance was late and is now completed. It is white if the job is expected but not run in the battle plan or is recognized as an ad hoc job. White screen text is shown in black in this manual.

Application Name

The application name (of the job instance) is highlighted if it is different from the CA 7 System Name.

CP

A C indicates this job is on a critical path. Otherwise it is blank.

Urgent Path - Rerun Factor

The values in the rerun factor and slack time fields are for the most urgent path the job is part of.

The rerun factor is calculated by dividing the time left before the path is late by the time it would take to run all the jobs in the path. A path with a rerun factor greater

than one has enough time to rerun all its jobs without being late. A negative rerun factor indicates by how much the path is late. If the rerun factor is greater than 9.9 then +Max is displayed. If it is less than -9.9, then -Max is displayed.

Urgent Path - Slack Time

Slack time is the difference between the expected completion time and the acceptable time for a path. A negative value is an indication of how late the urgent job path is. This value changes as the expected completion time is recalculated.

Job Instance Progress

When this column contains just a number, it is the number of job instances that have to complete before this job instance can proceed. It's the number of uncompleted upstream jobs in any of its paths.

If the column has C in the first position followed by a number, the job instance is a culprit and the number is how many job instances are waiting on this one. In this case it's the number of downstream jobs, in any of its paths, waiting on this job.

# of Paths

This is the number of paths the job instance belongs to.

PI - Production Importance

This is the calculated production importance for this job. If it has been overridden at this level it is shown in white. White screen text is shown in black in this manual.

Status

The PCS status of the job instance is one of the following:

• Pending - the job instance has not yet been submitted for execution.
• Ready - the job instance is on the JES2 execution queue awaiting execution.
• Active - the job instance is on the JES2 execution queue in execution.
• Done - the job instance terminated successfully, or was not run.
• Failed - the job instance failed and must be submitted for re-execution.

Details

See G-values-for-status-details for list of possible values.

CA-7 Status

See H-CA-7-status-values for list of possible values.

CA-7 Job Number

This is job number assigned by CA 7. It is displayed for cross reference purposes, or to use in CA 7 commands.

# of Paths

This is the number of job paths this job belongs to.

MM

Monitor Mode has a value of Y if the application to which the job belongs is in monitor mode, and blank if managed mode.

The third value, E, is used when the PCS mode is changed. See Turn PCS management off section for more information.

HT

This field shows the position of the job in its path: either H for header, T for trailer, M when between a header and trailer, and S for when it is a single-job tree.

Rpt Num

If non-blank, this is a repeating job. The value indicates the number of iterations that must run before this one. A value of zero indicates this is the active iteration.

Expected or Actual Starting Time

This is either the time the job instance actually started or the time it is expected to start. As the ending time is recalculated, the expected starting time is adjusted to be the ending time minus the elapsed time.

Job Elapsed Time

This is either the actual elapsed time is took for the job instance to complete, or the expected elapsed time if the job instance has not completed, in hours and minutes. NonEx is displayed if the job instance is non-executable.

Expected or Actual Ending Time

This is either the time the job instance actually ended or the time it is expected to end. The value is in red if it is late and has not yet completed; yellow if it will be late; and pink if it was late and is now completed.

The expected ending time may change over the course of the battle plan.

NL - Never Late

A Y is this column indicates PCS never considers this job late. It never receives preferred treatment due to lateness. (For this release, it is applicable to ad hoc jobs only.)

Acceptable Time

The job instance is considered late if it is not completed by this calculated acceptable time. If the acceptable time has been overridden at this level, i.e., the job instance level, it is shown in white. White screen text is shown in black in this manual.

Target Time

The target time is the latest time the job instance could complete and still allow the most urgent path to which the job belongs to be rerun once, or the acceptable time, whichever is earlier.

CA 7 Due- out Time

The CA 7 due-out time is set in the CA 7 database and displayed here for convenience.

Menu Options

Use the menu options to alter the data the panel shows.

Goto

Use this option to return to the active battle plan main menu for a view of the overall status of the workload running in this battle plan.

View

Use this option to display your custom in-house names rather than the ones the system generates.

You can also view all repeating job instances, or just the next set; the Repeat field, in the context area, reflects your choice with a value of All or Next.

Filter

Use the Filter menu to limit the number of job instances displayed. This menu is more involved than on other panels. Here’s a few tips to make the most use of this feature:

• You E-enable and D-disable (the set of) filters. Enabling filters tells PCS to use the set of activated filter types to decide which jobs to display. Disabling filters displays the full set of jobs. (This toggle allows you to switch between the unfiltered, whole set of jobs and the filtered set easily.)
• Each filter type needs to activated to be part of the enabled set. You can set up a filter type, say a job name pattern, which the system stores; when you activate this filter type, it is considered part of the enabled set; if you blank out the activation flag, it is not considered part of the enabled filters. Notice the number of activated filters in the context area of the panel.
• You can specify more than one filter type to apply (there are nine to choose from). The filters are and' d together. For example one filter might be CAT application jobs (filter type #1) and another might be jobs that are "done" (filter type #3); when the set is enabled only done CAT jobs are displayed.
• Each filter type can be specified as an exclude filter. When you set the exclude flag, all the jobs are displayed except the ones that the filter describes. If both filters above are specified in exclude mode, then the displayed list is all jobs that are not done and don't belong to the CAT application, i.e., all jobs except those that are done or belong to CAT.
• While specifying a filter, if you mistype a value and get an error message, press PF1 for information about the valid values.
• The drop down menu shows the activated filters that have been specified: the inclusive ones are in white and the exclusive ones in yellow. White screen text is shown in black in this manual.
• Choose the reset option to delete all the filter specifications.
  

The filter types, with their parameters, are:

1. Application name - supply a full application name. Only the jobs from this application are displayed. In exclude mode all the jobs from the other applications are displayed.
2. Job instance name pattern - use wild cards to identify the jobs. For example ???3* chooses CAT3109 and CUS3008H along with the others with 3 in the fourth position. In exclude mode the filter lists any job that does not match the pattern, e.g., without a 3 in the fourth position.
3. Job Status - enter one of pending, ready, active, done, or failed. In exclude mode, the filter matches any job with any of the other values.
4. CA 7 Job Status - (see list of valid values in H-CA-7-status-values). In exclude mode, the filter matches any job with any of the other values.
5. Only Late Jobs - includes jobs that are late, will be late or were late. In exclude mode any job that completed or is expected to complete on time is listed.
6. Job Structural Position - describes the structural position the job has in its paths; choose any two of header, middle, trailer, or single. (If you only want one value, say trailer, key it twice.) The filter matches a job if it has either of the chosen values. In exclude mode, the filter matches for any values other than the chosen ones.
7. Jobs to be started soon - supply a value for hh:mm. The filter matches a job if its expected start time is within the next hh hours and mm minutes. In exclude mode the filter matches for any jobs previously started or expected to start after this time has elapsed.
8. Jobs completed recently - supply a value for hh:mm. The filter matches a job if its actual ending time was within the last hh hours and mm minutes. In exclude mode the filter matches for any job that ended earlier that this interval or have not yet ended.
9. Adhoc jobs only - jobs submitted by CA 7 that were not detected by the PCS Forecast Collection Utility and that belong to an application that is in either manage or monitor mode are shown. In exclude mode, jobs submitted by CA 7 that were detected by the PCS Forecast Collection Utility and that belong to an application that is in either manage or monitor mode are shown.

The Filter primary command is an alternate way to specify your filters. Use Filter help to get the exact syntax and an explanation of each of these options.

Sort

Use the Sort menu to sort them, in ascending order, by one of 23 sort keys. Alternatively you can tab to the relevant column heading and press Enter to sort on that column.

• Most keys are sorted in ascending alphanumeric order. A few are sorted in an order that reflects the meaning of the values; see the "ordering notes" in the following table.
• Choose the same menu option to switch the direction of the sort. Alternatively pressing Enter again on the same column heading also switches the direction of the sort.
• See the context area for the sort key and direction that is in effect.
• Alternatively you can use the SORT primary command in the following form:

SORT <sort key shortform> A|D,where sort key shortform is shown in the list below; A is for ascending and D is for descending.

The possible sort keys are:

Primary Commands

The FILTER (FIL, FILT, and FILTE are also recognized) and SORT primary commands are described with their associated menu of the same name in the previous section.

FIND Command

The FIND (F is also recognized) command scrolls the display to the next occurrence of a character string. It's form is:

FIND <string>where string is a value in the first column of the display, i.e., job instance id. If the string is not found, a message is issued and the display is not changed.

LOCATE Command

The LOCATE command scrolls the display, based on the sorted column. The form is

LOCATE <string>where <string> is a value in the sorted column. If the string is not found it scrolls to the next row in the display.

Line Commands

S - Paths

Choose this option to display the paths this job belongs to. From there you can drill up to the tree a path belongs to and the application a tree belongs to.

Notice the job instance id in the context area. In the example, FUL1102 belongs to two paths.

The contents of this panel are similar to the one displayed when you drill down from a job tree. See Job path view for details.

P - Detailed Paths

In contrast to the Paths command which shows a list of paths the job is part of, the Detailed Paths command shows the list of jobs in the paths the job instance belongs to. In the example, we see FULL3101 in the context of its two paths.

The paths are presented in their rerun order, the most constrained first. UPath indicates the most urgent path the job belongs to. Within each path, the jobs are in the order they run in, starting with the header job, followed by the triggered jobs, with the trailer job at the end.

You can use any of the line commands to get more information about these jobs.

The FILTER and SORT menu options are not available on this panel.

X - Experience

Use the X-Experience command to see the experience data collected for this job name and schedule id combination. Data for the last several runs is available. See Experience View for a Job section for the details.

M - Monitor

Use M-Monitor to see the upstream jobs of this job. These jobs have to run before this job can. For details, see Monitoring-and-progress-views.

D - Delete

Use D-Delete to delete a job instance from the active battle plan. The job is no longer displayed in the PCS dialog during this battle plan. This is generally used when you know a job won't be run in this production cycle, and you don't want it to appear in the display dialogs. When you delete a job, any jobs it triggers are also deleted.

However if you delete the job from the battle plan and it is submitted nonetheless, PCS treats and displays it as an ad hoc job. You cannot delete an ad hoc job from the display.

O - View/Edit Defaults/Options

Change the job instance's defaults or options for this active battle plan. You can change the:

• Production importance, with a value of 1-5, with 1 indicating higher importance. Use D to restore the default value.
• Generate job summary with a value of Y or N, indicating whether PCS should add information in the SYSMSGs. Use D to restore the default value.

Note that the PCS Job Summary is not generated for an application in monitor-mode. (If a job is processed as a Service Group, it may have that version of the job summary produced.)

• Use CA 7 due-out time as acceptable time, with a value of Y or N, indicating PCS should use the CA 7 due-out time, if specified, as the acceptable time for this job instance. Note that when due-out time as acceptable time and acceptable time are both specified at this level, due-out time takes precedence.

Use D to restore the default value.

• Culprit job time, overrides the job time calculated by PCS from experience data. Job time is used to determine if a job is running longer than expected. PCS measures the time between when all the predecessor and triggering relationships of the job have been satisfied and the current time (or the job's completion time if it is already finished), plus a buffer factor. When this interval exceeds the job time, the job is considered a culprit.

Blank out this field to restore the default.

• Acceptable time, with a value in the form of hh:mm, either today or tomorrow, to indicate the value after which the job is considered late. Since today and next day are relative to the start or the production cycle, you cannot set a time before the production cycle starts. Other acceptable times may be impacted by this change and PCS automatically adjusts them as needed.

Blank out the value to restore the default.

To make any of these changes permanent, or to enter new alerts, make the same changes from the AMD Services sub-dialog.

I - Info (UDF)

This provides BMC ThruPut Manager information while the job is in the queue. The output familiar to BMC AMI Ops Automation for Batch ThruPut users is supplemented with PCS details.

G - Progress

See Monitoring-and-progress-views.

A - Add to and R - Remove from

The Add to and Remove from line commands allow you to add or remove entries from an installation list. The list can be an existing one or a new one that persists for this battle plan, for future instances of this day-of-week production cycle or for all production cycles. See Set up Installations Lists for more information.

View/Edit Job Instances in an Installation List

By definition, installation lists have jobs of special interest to your installation. This view allows you to focus on these jobs only.

Its layout, columns, and field values are the same as for View/Edit All Job Instances in Active Battle Plan. Use the List menu to switch back and forth between this and the other job views. The Filter menu is ignored for this view.

View/Edit All Customized Job Instances

If you change the defaults or options at the job level (i.e., L4 or L8) for jobs in this battle plan, they appear on this list.

Its layout, columns, and field values are the same as for View/Edit All Job Instances in Active Battle Plan. Use the List menu to switch back and forth between this and the other job views. The Filter menu is ignored for this view.

View/Edit Incomplete Culprit Job Instances

This is the list of culprit jobs that have not yet completed.

Job time is used to determine if a job is running longer than expected. PCS measures the time between when all the predecessor and triggering relationships of the job have been satisfied and the current time (or the job's completion time if it is already finished), plus a buffer factor. When this interval exceeds the job time from the experience data, the job is considered a culprit.

Its layout, columns, and field values are the same as for View/Edit All Job Instances in Active Battle Plan. Use the List menu to switch back and forth between this and the other job views. The Filter menu is ignored for this view.

View/Edit Unconfirmed Demand Job Instances

Jobs on the Demand Job List are expected by the battle plan, but have not been demanded in yet. They may not appear in this battle plan at all. Until they do, they are unconfirmed. Therefore this is a list of potential jobs for this battle plan and can serve as a memory aid for what could be demanded if appropriate.

Its layout, columns, and field values are the same as for View/Edit All Job Instances in Active Battle Plan. Use the List menu to switch back and forth between this and the other job views. The Filter menu is available for this view.