Release 7.07

General Availability - America: July 31, 2008 , Europe: December 2008

A copy of this release information is available as a downloadable PDF.

New DBLOG Procedures

Each system now has its own DBLOG to improve performance. The prefix.DBLOG must remain to support previous versions and also acts as a prefix for the new logs. Run the INITLOG job creating a new prefix.DBLOG.MZxxxx dataset where xxxx is the SMF id, for each system.
Once you have all systems on 7.07 or greater, you can run the CLRLOG job to empty the original log. You can run the INITLOG job against prefix.DBLOG to set it to 1 track, but eventACTION will have to be down to do this.
The log is a wrap around dataset and if there is less than 24 hours worth of data stored, it will try to expand using the original secondary allocation. It will do this up to 16 times until more than 1 days worth of data is kept, or an x37 abend occurs.
If you need to move the log file, or you want to change the allocation, you can run the COPYLOG job without shutting down eventAction. Edit the job appropriately for your site. Make sure it runs on the same system that owns this log.
The PRTLOG job has been changed to merge all the log files, or you can specify one SMF id.
If the log writer gets an error, it will close the log and send an email to the Global Administrators. The messages will be queued until it is restarted, but only for about 1 hour. After you fix the problem, you can restart the log by entering G;OPEN Q=LOG from eventAction or run the last step of the COPYLOG job. Make sure you are on the correct system.

Change Requests

A new command has been added to display/modify the Long Description.
A new option at the OID Level has been added to make Long Description mandatory.
Two new fields have been added on the SUMM panel:

External Product Name, and
External Change Request Id.

These fields have also been added to the Quick Change Request panel.
On panel 4/4 of Options at OID Level, two new options have been added:

Default Name of External Product to be used, and
External Product Change Request Id must be provided.

Searching for conflicting change requests by dataset and member names has been updated to correct inconsistencies.
There have been complications updating change request information across systems, especially in the area of the "Change Made" information. The process for such updates has been enhanced to improve its accuracy, reliability, and timeliness. The visible difference to a user of the change request facility is the new Change Log within each change request. Changes made against a Change Request are now recorded in a separate log. Prior to this release, the change made info was recorded in the Change Request Log (command LG); the new Log of Changes can be accessed with the command CHGL to view the list of datasets/members changed. The original log still contains all the other information that had been previously recorded there but the new Log of Changes is not editable. Because of this separation of information, the Change Request Detail Report now has a separate section for the Log of Changes to datasets/members.
A new token field has been added to the records for DS entries. This will help to improve updates of DS entries in memory across systems.

Health Checker

A beta version of eventAction Health Checker is now available for users running z/OS 1.8 or later. The following checks are included in this initial beta release:

Alert check to display the alert messages generated by various components of eventACTION.
ussACTION Change Tracker check to issue warning message if /tmp is defined to ussACTION Change Tracker.
ussACTION Reference Tracker check to issue warning message if /tmp is defined to ussACTION Reference Tracker.
testACTION check to issue warning message if testACTION hooks are not installed in the proper order.

Please contact Action Software International for instructions on activating and using this Beta feature if you are interested to test this feature, and be prepared to provide feedback regarding the results of your testing.

UssACTION Reference Tracker

References are now being tracked by SMFid. There will be a reference entry containing the last three references (1 per day) for every SMFid sharing the database. For those sharing HFS/zFS between LPARs will have more statistics. For those who share the database but do not share their HFS/zFS files will now see the actual xFS being referenced.
In conjunction with this enhancement, a new eventAction startup parmlib member option has been defined:
USSSYSPLEX=YES|NO
The default value for this option is YES. Users that are not sharing HFS files across a changeplex must specify USSSYSPLEX=NO.

Compare Utility

A beta version of the Data Merge facility is available for testing when comparing two files. This feature allows you to copy lines of data from one file to the other via the side-by-side view of the compare results. The use of this facility is only documented in the help panels.

The process of using the Data Merge facility flows as follows:

When you have compared two files and you are in the results panel, COMPARE UTILITY Data Output (where you have one file on each side of the screen), you use the primary command MERGE to invoke this facility. You must decide which side will now be the update or Target side and which side will be the Origin side. The Merge command requires that this choice be indicated here such as MERGE First or MERGE 2. Refer to the HELP for the full syntax and description of the MERGE command.
You will see the Dsname titles change to Target and Origin insteadof First and Second. There will also be a direction indicator on the panel showing which way the data lines can be moved; the indicator will be

<<<<<<--- MERGE ---
or
--- MERGE --->>>>>>

where the arrows point toward the target side. A pop-up window will also document the choice you have made.
The separator fields will now take a series of line commands to move data from the Origin to the Target side. These commands are described in the Help panels. The line command field only has two characters available to it so one character pertains to the Target side and one character pertains to the Origin side.
You may edit lines on the Target side without copying data from the Origin side in two ways:
- Use the Edit line command (E) to place a single line in input mode and then change it; when you hit enter, the line will revert to output mode.
- Use the EDIT primary command to place all the lines of the Target side in input mode. All lines will remain input mode after you change them. This mode is saved in your ISPF profile and so will be used in the same way for your next use of Data Merge.
As you make changes, whether by editing or copying lines, the two sides are re-compared so you can see the results of your changes.
When you are finished, hitting the END key (PF3) will prompt you to SAVE if changes have been made. If you proceed to save, then a SAVE confirmation window will be displayed asking where you want the Target file to be written; this is similar to the restore of a backup copy under Datasets Changed. You can put the data into any live file that you choose, even if it comes from a backup copy.
The line commands take a while to get used to because of the single character. If you get confused or don't get the expected results, you can always RESet to remove any current pending line command actions or you can cancel out and not save when prompted to do so.

If you have any concerns, please feel free to email Support or call. We appreciate all feedback on the use of this facility.

Reporting Facility

The format of the Datasets Changed Summary Report (DSSUMMRY) has been enhanced to include an indicator if the volume serial number of the dataset on which the individual member changed was an IPL volume at the time of that change. Both formats of the report have changed:

The SCAN format output has added the characters "I-" in front of the volser to indicate that this volser was an IPL volume when the change was made.
The original format has added the entire CHANGE VOLUME column to indicate the volume on which the dataset resided when the change was made; this volser may be different than the one printed with the Dataset Name information if the dataset moves to different volumes. This same volser field can be seen online on panel MEMBERS CHANGED (5/6) of the Datasets Changed Facility (Option D). The prefix "I-" is added to this volser if it was an Ipl volume when the change was made.

USS Change Requests

Searching for conflicting change requests by directory and file names is now supported under USS..

WLM Tracker

A beta version of WLM tracker is now available for tracking the activation of WLM policies and the installation of WLM service definitions.

Please contact Action Software International for instructions on activating and testing this Beta feature if you are interested and are prepared to provide feedback regarding the results of your testing.

eventACTION Sub-System

The eventACTION subsystem has been enhanced to accept initialization parameters. This enhancement has been added to allow users of the testACTION Beta product to set up the testACTION system interfaces at subsystem initialization time. The parameters can be specified with the INITPARM keyword of the SUBSYS statement in the IEFSSNxx parmlib member. Parameters can be specified directly in INITPARM and/or in a MZCPRMxx member referenced in INITPARM.

Example using INITPARM directly:

IEFSSNxx:

SUBSYS SUBNAME(MZCA) INITRTN(MZ1ZSSI) INITPARM('TESTACTION')

Example using INITPARM and MZCPRMxx:

IEFSSNxx:

SUBSYS SUBNAME(MZCA) INITRTN(MZ1ZSSI) INITPARM('INIT=02')

MZCPRM02:

TESTACTION=YES

The End

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