Including dependencies defined in the database

When you add application occurrences to the current plan, decide if the occurrence or group should be added with the dependencies defined in the application database. With the AUTOMATIC DEP field, you can:

Add both predecessor and successor dependencies (either applications or operations).
Add only predecessor dependencies (either applications or operations).
Add only successor dependencies (either applications or operations).
Ignore any dependencies specified in the application description.

Because conditional dependencies are considered external dependencies, if set AUTOMATIC DEP to N they are not added even if they refer to internal operations. If an application definition contains conditions and you set AUTOMATIC DEP to N, a confirmation panel (EQQMCADC) is displayed to avoid losing conditions from the plan.

When you request that dependencies be considered for individual occurrences, you can also specify whether or not the predecessors must be resolved. If you specify RESOLVE REQUIRED=Y, the scheduler issues a message if any predecessors defined in the application cannot be resolved and the scheduler does not add the application occurrence to the current plan until you enter DEP and delete the unresolved dependency.

If predecessors are added to an application in the AD database, this does not take effect in the current plan until that application is scheduled by daily planning or manually added to the current plan.

You can also delete external dependencies or specify additional dependencies when you are adding an occurrence. For detailed information, see Changing and adding dependencies.

Successor dependencies are added automatically only if the dependency is defined in the applications database at the time the successor occurrence was added to the current plan. When an occurrence is added to the plan, either manually using the MODIFYING CURRENT PLAN panel or automatically scheduled by daily planning, HCL Workload Automation for Z creates a potential predecessor record for predecessors that are not in the current plan. This can happen if the predecessor (job A) is run on demand. When its successor (job B) is added to the plan (at daily planning), HCL Workload Automation for Z notices that its predecessor (A) is missing. When you add the on-demand application (A), and specify that HCL Workload Automation for Z is to resolve successor dependencies, HCL Workload Automation for Z looks for predecessors that match, and the added occurrence A becomes a predecessor to B, unless B has started or has already completed.

If there are several occurrences of B in the plan, HCL Workload Automation for Z must choose which occurrence of B to make the successor. The best successor is the first not-started occurrence or operation with an occurrence input arrival later than or equal to that of the occurrence being added.

To handle the resolution of conditional successors, the scheduler might automatically generate conditions, to be consistent with the database definitions and prevent a condition from referring to different occurrences of the same applications. You can change only the description of the conditions that are automatically generated.

For each missing predecessor, HCL Workload Automation for Z can keep track of up to 1000 successors. If this limit is reached, no more successors are added and a warning message is issued.

If you add an occurrence to the current plan from the MODIFYING CURRENT PLAN panel, and later run a daily planning EXTEND or REPLAN job, daily planning never makes the manually-added occurrence a predecessor or successor of an occurrence that it adds from the long-term plan, even if the dependency is specified in the database. This is because daily planning does not search the current plan to resolve dependencies, but it takes the dependencies directly from the long-term plan. For example:

You add an occurrence of PAYDAILY using the MODIFYING CURRENT PLAN panel. PAYDAILY is specified in the database as a predecessor of PAYBACKP.
You extend the current plan, which adds an occurrence of PAYBACKP.
Even though the application description for PAYBACKP states that it has an external predecessor PAYDAILY, PAYBACKP will not have this dependency, because occurrence dependencies are not added when the current plan is extended unless they were present in the long-term plan.

When you specify resolution of predecessor dependencies, HCL Workload Automation for Z looks for occurrences that are predecessors to the added operations, but also considering the following rules:

The predecessor operation can be completed (or started).
If the added operation has an explicit input arrival time, HCL Workload Automation for Z takes the predecessor occurrence that has both the following characteristics:
- The input arrival time is earlier and closest to, or the same as, the input arrival time of the added operation.
- Contains a candidate predecessor operation.
If the added operation has no explicit input arrival time, HCL Workload Automation for Z takes the predecessor occurrence that has both the following characteristics:
- The input arrival time is earlier and closest to, or the same as, the input arrival time of the added occurrence, as specified on the ADDING AN APPLICATION TO THE CURRENT PLAN panel in EQQMAOCP - Adding an application to the current plan.
- Contains a candidate predecessor operation.

Note: When resolving a dependency, HCL Workload Automation for Z uses the input arrival time of the predecessor occurrence, not the input arrival time of the operation specified in the dependency.