Job descriptions

If you want only one main processor operation (job) in an application, you can create it with the Job Description dialog box, which compresses most of the function of the APPLICATION DESCRIPTION panel into one panel by making some assumptions about the application that you are creating. An application that is created using the JOB DESCRIPTION dialog box, or that has the restrictions enforced by that panel, is called a job description.

You can browse or modify job descriptions using both the JOB DESCRIPTION and the APPLICATION DESCRIPTION panels, but if you change a job description using the APPLICATION DESCRIPTION panel so that it no longer obeys the rules for job descriptions, it becomes a standard application description.

Standard applications and group definitions can be viewed or modified only with the APPLICATION DESCRIPTION panel.

To be a job description, an application description must satisfy the following conditions:
  • It consists of no more than three operations.
    • One of the operations is a computer workstation operation, or a general workstation WTO operation. This operation is called the main operation of the description.
    • The other two operations, if present, are immediate predecessors of the main operation, and run on general workstations, either as manual operations or as JCL preparation operations.
  • The job name of the main operation is the same as the job description ID and the same as its two general workstation predecessors, if present.
  • The operation is ready to be included in the schedule: you cannot specify pending status for job descriptions.
  • The application ID and owner ID should not be specified in double-byte character set (DBCS) bracketed format.

If you create an application that meets these rules, HCL Workload Automation for Z classes it as a job description, whether you create it with the APPLICATION DESCRIPTION panel, the JOB DESCRIPTION dialog box or a program interface (PIF) application.

Like standard applications, you can specify a run cycle for the job description, or make it part of a group, in which case HCL Workload Automation for Z uses the calendar and run cycles associated with the group definition.