Job tailoring

This chapter describes the job tailoring, which enable jobs to be automatically edited using information that is known only at job setup or submit. This can reduce your dependency on time-consuming and error-prone manual editing of jobs. Job tailoring provides:
  • Automatic variable substitution
  • Dynamic inclusion or exclusion of inline job statements
  • Dynamic inclusion of job statements from the EQQJBLIB data set or from an exit

For jobs to be submitted on a z/OS® system, these job statements will be z/OS® JCL, but HCL Workload Automation for Z JCL tailoring directives can be included in jobs to be submitted on other supported operating systems. The directives have the same format for all supported operating systems.

An alternative method of substituting variables is to use the HCL Workload Automation for Z program interface (PIF) . The PIF lets user-programs issue requests to the HCL Workload Automation for Z subsystem, thereby automating actions that you would otherwise perform with the panels. The PIF resource, JCLPREPA, can simulate variable substitution; in other words, you can perform trial substitution of your variables without actually updating the job.

Note: You must specify values when using a JCLPREPA-call to PIF, otherwise the variable will not be substituted, leaving &, ?, and % signs in the job.

For more information about PIF, see Developer's Guide: Driving HCL Workload Automation for Z.