4. EXCEPTIONS › 4.1 Exception Process Overview

4.1 Exception Process Overview

The CA MICS exception process consists of the exceptions
themselves, a set of standard reports, CA MICS Information
Center Facility (MICF) inquiries, an exception test routine,
and an exception value analysis routine.  Each of these is
described below.

If you intend to make use of the exception reports, it is
important that you evaluate the exceptions which are shipped
with the product and adjust them to the requirements of your
unique environment.

EXCEPTIONS

An exception is the occurrence of an event that merits
visibility and attention.  It may be an occurrence that is a
distinct problem (for example, CICS abended at 2:00 pm), one
that may be a problem and requires further research (for
example, a TSO user overloaded the system from 1:00 to 1:30
pm), or it may represent a standards, security, or audit
violation (for example, user XYZ is not authorized to use
PDZAP and was detected using it seven times yesterday).

Because the volume of exception occurrences can be quite
large, CA MICS provides means to categorize, aggregate,
consolidate, and prioritize them to meet your needs.  Each
exception has:

   o An Exception Number for unique definition

   o A Severity Level to signify degree of importance

   o A Management Area to identify area of responsibility


STANDARD EXCEPTION REPORTS

The standard exception reports provide a concise, integrated
method for problem reporting.  The following reports can be
produced as part of the CA MICS DAILY job:

   o Exception Management Overview Report

   o Severity Level Exception Summary Report

   o Management Area Exception Summary Report

You control which reports are produced via the REPORT
EXCEPTIONS statement in prefix.MICS.PARMS(EXECDEF).  See
Section 2.3.5 of the PIOM for more information.

Two additional standard reports can be produced as required
to provide the necessary background detail to effectively
analyze reported exceptions.  The two reports are

   o Full Exception Detail Report

   o Short Exception Detail Report


MICF INQUIRIES

The catalog group EXCEPT that is shipped with CA MICS
contains a number of standard MICF inquiries that can be used
to report exception conditions.  In the following inquiry
list, graphic reports with a value of x equals C, produce
color graphic reports using SAS/GRAPH.  If the value of x is
P, printer graphic reports are produced without using
SAS/GRAPH.

   o BASxM1 - Monthly Exception Summary Report
   o BASxM2 - Monthly Mgmt.  Area Exception Summary Report
   o BASxM3 - Monthly Info.  Area Exception Summary Report
   o BASxM4 - Monthly Exception Management Overview Report
   o BASxM5 - Monthly Info.  Area Exception Overview Report
   o BASxW1 - Weekly Exception Summary Report
   o BASxW2 - Weekly Mgmt.  Area Exception Summary Report
   o BASxW3 - Weekly Info.  Area Exception Summary Report

The following inquiries that produce printed reports are also
available:

   o BASLD2 - Daily Severity Level Exception Summary Report
   o BASLD3 - Daily Management Area Exception Summary Report
   o BASLD4 - Daily Short Exception Detail Report
   o BASLD5 - Daily Full Exception Detail Report
   o BASLD6 - Daily Exception Ranking Report
   o BASLM6 - Monthly Exception Ranking Report

These standard inquiries have an execution-time parameter
selection that permits you to report on a subset of the
exceptions.  For example, inquiry BASLD5 allows selection on
SYSID, Information Area, Management Area, Severity Level, and
other criteria.


EXCEPTION TEST ROUTINE

Each CA MICS product has an exception test routine that is
invoked in the DAY200 step of the CA MICS DAILY job. You
control which routines are invoked using the CREATE
EXCEPTIONFILES statement in prefix.MICS.PARMS(EXECDEF).  See
the PIOM, Section 2.3.5, for more information on EXECDEF.

An exception test routine, written in the SAS language,
defines the exception and tests to determine whether or not
the exception condition is present in the data being
processed.  The distributed exception test routine for each
product is contained in sharedprefix.MICS.SOURCE(DYcccEXC)
where ccc is the product identifier.  When the DAY200 step
invokes the test routines, it does so by %INCLUDEing the
DYcccEXC member from prefix.MICS.USER.SOURCE.  As
distributed, that member then %INCLUDEs the member from
sharedprefix.MICS.SOURCE.  See Section 4.2 of this guide,
Setting Exception Values, for more information on DYcccEXC.


EXCEPTION VALUE ANALYSIS ROUTINE

Each product has an exception value analysis (EVA) routine
that can be used to help determine values for the exception
conditions.  The EVA routine extracts information from the CA
MICS Database.  Descriptive statistics for the values of
variables used in exception tests are printed in the
Exception Value Analysis Report.  The EVA routine for each
product is stored in sharedprefix.MICS.SOURCE(cccEVA).  The
job control to execute the EVA process is contained in
prefix.MICS.CNTL(cccEVA).


ADJUSTING EXCEPTION VALUES

It is important that sharedprefix.MICS.SOURCE(DYcccEXC) not
be modified directly.  See the CA MICS Standard Reports
Guide, Section 2.4 for procedures on how to make
modifications to exception values.  Also it is recommended
that IEBUPDTE be used for any changes.  This will allow
modifications to be easily re-applied after maintenance is
applied to DYcccEXC.