The TotalTestConfiguration Project
The first time you execute a Total Test Scenario, you will be notified that a TotalTestConfiguration project does not exist in your workspace and that it will be created. This project is used for keeping additional parameters needed for each host connection as well as JCL skeletons. The information in this folder is similar to what would be setup at the Total Test Repository server when that is used. The JCL skeletons include the runner jcl for a Virtualized Test and a general job card. Later releases might introduce more skeletons. The TotalTestConfiguration project includes required properties and resources for Total Test in a folder that can be shared among team members, and that can also be used by an automated CI/CD pipeline. That way, settings only need to be setup once and can be reused by teams and pipelines. The project can be shared with Version Control Systems like Git or though Topaz Team Profiles. You can always start using the locally generated project and later replace the project with a shared project, if such a project is available for you.
The content of the TotalTestConfiguration project is typically setup once and not changed until a new host connection needs to be used or some setting on an LPAR changes. Typically, it will be one team member or administrator that sets up the data and shares it with teams that don't have to consider the content in the project.
The project includes a hostconnections.tttcfg file that contains a list of host connections and the additional properties required for each connection. Every time you execute a test scenario, Total Test will map data from this file with host connections defined in Topaz. If a new host connection is added to Topaz, next time you execute you will be asked if the configuration file should be updated with the new connections. You can open and edit the file by double-clicking it. It will open in an Editor dialog where you see the list of connections and where you can setup data for each connection. There might be connections in the file that cannot be mapped to a host connection in your Topaz, simply because you have not defined that host connection. It will show a warning which is fine. You will only see available host connections when you execute a test scenario. It will also show warnings if you have not setup required data.
The main parameters that need to be set for each connection are the loadlibrary location of the TTTRUNNER (only necessary when using the Unit test element) and DB2 JDBC settings (only necessary for using the SQL Select and SQL Update elements). The optional Dataset HLQ is only required when it is different from the default (your TSO User ID) and is used when Topaz for Total Test allocates datasets on the mainframe during test execution.
Each connection can have its own folder for JCL skeletons. By default all connections share the same JCLSkeletons directory under the project with two skeleton files, JobCard.jcl and TTTRUNNER.jcl. The templates are dynamic and can use variable substitution in the format ${<varialble>}. A number of variables are available, including userId, accoutingInfo, environmentId and environmentType.
Overriding default skeletons
If a specific test scenario requires changes to the JCL skeletons, you can copy the standard skeletons from the JCLSkeletons directory from the TTTConfiguration project to another folder and change them as required. When executing the test scenario, the Options tab in the Execution Context dialog includes an "Optional JCL Skeleton folder" field where you can specify the folder containing the custom templates. If this path points to the required JCL skeletons, then these will be used instead of the skeletons belonging to a host connection.
When using the Virtualized Test element, there is a third option. If there is a file TTTRUNNER.jcl in the JCL directory relative to the Virtualized Test testscenario file, then this file will be used for generating JCL.