Special Usage Considerations › Using Alternative Report Formats › Usage Considerations and Restrictions

Usage Considerations and Restrictions

The following are considerations and restrictions when using alternative report formats:

• The OUTFMT option is a batch-only, full product-only option.
• The conversion process is called after the primary report file (usually SYSPRINT) is written and closed. Therefore, the conversion process will not change anything in the primary report file or the return code of the CA JCLCheck invocation even if errors occur during the conversion process.
• All errors encountered during the conversion process will be written to the JCKCSVO or JCKPDFO file or as a WTO message, depending on what the error is and where it was encountered.
• The OUTFMT option requires the primary report file. If the NOLIST option is specified, the conversion process is aborted. Also, the primary report file must be DASD-resident. However, as part of the conversion file, the report file is copied to a SYSOUT file. The WTO message CAY6420I informs the user where the SYSOUT file is in the CA JCLCheck job output. For example,

  CAY6420I REPORT FILE OUTPUT COPIED TO DDNAME SYS00004
  

• The OUTFMT option requires two additional JCL statements in order to implement CSV conversion and two additional JCL statements in order to implement PDF conversion. These JCL statements, the CSV configuration file template pairs, and the PDF configuration file parameters are described earlier in this section.
• A basic default CSV configuration file and PDF configuration file is provided in the CAI.CAZ2OPTN library. The members are: CONFIGCS for the CSV configuration file and CONFIGPD for the PDF configuration file.
  If you change the CSV configuration file provided by CA JCLCheck, any future changes to the format, for example, heading text, titles, column layout, data items, etc., requires a re-examination of and possible modification to the user-modified CSV configuration file.
• The first section of the primary report file with all of the options in effect is completely ignored and skipped in the converted output file during the CSV conversion process. The first section is not skipped during PDF conversion.
• Every report in the primary report file must be represented in the CSV configuration file by at least a heading template pair. The heading template pair must be the first template pair representing each report on the primary report file. The conversion process reads one primary report file line at a time and attempts to find a match in the CSV configuration file following the heading template pair of that report. The first template pair that matches the current primary report file line is used to do CSV conversion. If no match is found, the asis template pair is used as a default.
• There are 2 special-purpose CSV template pairs:

  ''
  SKIP 9999
  

  This template pair informs the conversion process to skip the remainder of the current report. If this immediately follows the heading template pair, the entire report (except the report heading line itself) is skipped.

  ''
  ASIS 9999
  

  This template pair informs the conversion process to copy the remainder of the current report as-is to the converted output file. If this immediately follows the heading template pair, the entire report (except the report heading line itself) is copied as-is onto the converted output file.

• When downloading the CSV converted output file to a personal workstation, set the following file conversion parameters:

  ASCII
  CRLF
  NOTRUNC
  

  The PC file name suffix should be .csv.
  When you invoke Excel, set the Autoformat setting. This enables you to view the columns properly.

• When downloading the PDF converted output file to a personal workstation, do not set any file conversion parameters because the output file is already in ASCII. The PC file name suffix should be .pdf.