Release 7.06

September 28, 2007 For a printable version of Release 7.06 highlights select this pdf.

Elimination of user key CSA

As of Version 7.06, eventACTION no longer obtains any CSA data areas in key 8. This allows eventACTION to function properly when VSM ALLOWUSERKEYCSA(NO) is specified in the DIAGxx member of parmlib. VSM ALLOWUSERKEYCSA(NO) is the default in z/OS 1.9.

Reports

A new Datasets Changed information report has been added; the short name for this report is DSDETAIL. This report documents more detailed information about each change record selected from the database in that it prints both the statistics information about the change and also compares its backup copy to its previous backup copy to document the changes in the data contents of the dataset or member.

This report allows you to select the change information as with the DSSUMMRY Datasets Changed Summary report and also allows you to specify options for each invocation of the compare facility which is used to document the contents changes. Therefore, instead of trying to reconcile change information from both the DSSUMMRY report and the DCDETAIL compare report which take different approaches, all the information can be produced through a single report.

This report will search the database for all the changes that satisfy the selection criteria and then invoke the compare utility for each change record to compare its backup to a previous backup. If the change is an add, delete or rename in that only one backup copy is available, then the contents will be simply be listed; options are available to affect how such content is printed. Please refer to the help panels for change tracking considerations and descriptions of the reporting options.

Email Messaging

When eventACTION uses email to send messages or batch sysout, it attempts to get the sending host's fully qualified TCP/IP domain name for use in constructing the sender's email address. Because calls to UNIX facilities are required to obtain this information, any userid performing these calls requires an OMVS segment under the security system. If a userid has no OMVS segment, then eventACTION uses the system's SMFid as the domain name when constructing the sender's email address.

For example, if the system's TCP/IP host is SYSA and the TCP/IP domain origin is actionsoftware.com, eventACTION will use "SYSA.actionsoftware.com" as the fully qualified domain name and the default "From" email address for mail from eventACTION would be eventACTION@SYSA.actionsoftware.com. In the event that the userid does not have an OMVS segment, the default "From" email address for mail from eventACTION would be eventACTION@SYSA.

So that you do not have to connect every userid using eventACTION's email messaging to OMVS, eventACTION has been changed so that only the userid used by the MZCA main task requires connectivity to OMVS. Other users whose actions result in email from eventACTION now obtain the fully qualified domain name from eventACTION rather than from direct calls to UNIX facilities.

User Catalogs

eventACTION can now track and control DEFINE USERCATALOG and DELETE USERCATALOG. User catalog tracking and control follows the same eventACTION rules as other VSAM data sets. You can track them using masked data set names, but you must fully define the name of a catalog to control it.

Datasets Changed panel

SYSRES volumes will be shown in a different colour so that system datasets for this system are more easily identifiable. The colour can be changed in the MZCDSC* panels and defaults to PINK.

Dataset Options panel

A new line command (BKP) will force a backup to be done by the Daily job. This can be used to prime the database with backup information. That way, a .UNKNOWN record will more acurately reflect the change made. If the dataset or volume are masked, you will get a new list of all matching datasets. You can then eXclude those you don't want to process and enter DO BKP to process all the others.

Installation

A new STEPLIB parm has been added so that those who want to run from LNKLST can ignore all STEPLIBs when creating the CNTL members.

Product Execution Control (PXC)

A new option "RACF Control for Execution" is added to the PXC entry. Specify YES if you want to use RACF to control who can execute the program. After the PXC entry is saved, the "RACF Resource Name for Execution" is generated by eventACTION and will be shown on the PXC entry panel.
Note that "RACF Control for Execution" and "User Group allowed to execute" are mutually exclusive. If you use either of these options then the first SMFID must be an "*" (asterisk).

Reference Tracker

A new option has been added to the Reference Tracker that allows references to be filtered according to whether the referenced module was accessed via lnklst or steplib. This option is activated by specifying RTLNKONLY=YES in parmlib(MZCPRMxx). If RTLNKONLY=YES is specified, then only references via lnklst are tracked.

RTM (new)

Part of the RTM (new) has been rewritten to write to DBLOG when you activate the TRC Option for a member. Use the following steps to use this option:

Line Command TRC on Reference Tracking by Member panel.
Whenever the member is referenced, an entry in DBLOG will be created.
To view the entries from DBLOG, modify job prefix.CNTL(PRTLOG) and submit it.

External Language Interface

Added new REXX variables for Change Request. The new variables support Change Request User Fields. The new variable names are:

MZCR_USRFLD_xxxxxxxx - contains the User Field value
MZCR_USRFLD_xxxxxxxx_DESC - contains the User Field Description

where xxxxxxxx is replaced with the User Field name.

Parmlib startup options

A new parameter has been added, VLF=YES, that can be defined to reference track VLF managed objects.
Please note that this is a BETA feature. If you would like to try out this feature contact Action Software.

Excludes

The Excludes feature has been rewritten to move the records from CSA (KEY8) to private storage in the MZCA address space.

testACTION

testACTION is a new feature which provides facilities for transparently testing new versions of products as well as individual programs, CLISTs, REXX execs and cataloged procedures.
testACTION eliminates the requirement to change JCL, execs, etc., to test new versions by dynamically changing the programs, execs, or libraries used at execution time.
NOTE: This feature is currently under Beta test and is subject to further change. Please contact Action Software International for instructions on activating and using this Beta feature if you wish to test this feature, and be prepared to provide feedback regarding the results of your testing.

The End.