Delaying an operation, and releasing it

Sometimes you must delay the start of an operation because of a situation beyond your control. For example, the application programmer is manually editing some production files to incorporate an urgent program fix. In such situations, when the operations concerned are already in the current plan and waiting only for a certain time or for predecessors to be complete, you must do something to stop the operation from being started when the scheduling criteria are satisfied. You can:
  • Manually HOLD the operation by using the MCP panel, or the ready list if the operation predecessors are already complete.
  • Modify the job to include a deliberate error; for example, a comma at the end of the job card for a z/OS job. The job is submitted when all the scheduling criteria are met but does not actually execute until the syntax error is corrected.
  • Modify the occurrence to include an extra operation on a general workstation, which becomes a predecessor for the operation you need to delay.

The manual HOLD command, MH, can be issued for an operation on a computer workstation with automatic reporting or on any workstation with no reporting, if the current status of the operation is A, R, *, W, C, or E. The scheduler does not start any operation that has been manually placed in HOLD by a panel user, even though the status of the operation will change when the operation start criteria make the operation eligible to be started. If the operation that was manually placed in HOLD is a time-dependent, suppress-if-late operation, its submission is delayed until the suppress time is reached. When the suppress time has expired, the action set by the SUPPRESSACTION keyword is taken, even if the operation is still manually held. All operations that have been manually placed on HOLD are identified by the extended status code H.

When you no longer want the operation held, you can issue the RELEASE command, MR, and the operation extended status code changes to reflect the current situation. If all start criteria for this operation are met, the operation can start immediately.

If you need to HOLD or RELEASE an operation that is not on the ready list, you can use the MCP panel. For more details, see Modifying operations. These commands can also be entered from the ended-in-error list.

You cannot invoke the next logical status row command against an operation that has been manually held, but you can set a specific status. This does not alter the HOLD indication.

The MH command gives the operation the HOLD property. To remove this property from the operation, use the MR command. Neither the MH command nor the MR command changes the status of an operation directly. A HOLD operation is not automatically scheduled for processing.

Note: You can set the Manually Hold option for an operation directly in the Application Description database, or you can associate the Manually Hold option with a specific run cycle. When the operation is added to the current plan, either dynamically or not dynamically, the Manually Hold value takes the following value in the following order:
  1. The value set in the associated run cycle, if applicable.
  2. The value set in the Application Description database.
  3. The value overwritten by the user when the operation is added to the CP (from the ISPF panel).