Print Updates to iSeries screen W/O SNDBRKMSG??

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HitchGA

Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Oct 20, 2010 11:55 am

Post by HitchGA » Wed Oct 20, 2010 1:29 pm
Looking for 'How To" Advice, if this is even possible.

We have GoAnywhere Director running on a Windows Server.
Our main system is a custom software system running on an iSeries (v5r3 - mainly in S/36EE).

Our users are used to see status messages from an active program printing on a blank screen. They are not comfortable with the screens appearing brought up by SNDBRKMSG and having to hit a key to refresh, etc.

I'm setting up a project to replace a machine specific function, that involved iSeries file transfers to a PC, then a DOS batch script, that then sends data back to the iSeries. The new project uses SFTP and workspaces and I've built in some file validation by counting outgoing records vs returned records. The project would allow any user to run it from their own PC. They would not have an email address to just get the joblog at the end of the project.

Has anyone built a project that would do this?

User has a 5250 screen:
RUNPROJECT etc. etc. called...
...
************ FILE CREATED TO BE UPLOADED *************
Hitch_${today}_${BatchNum}.prg Total Orders Sent: ${ordCount}
. . .
File Retrieved from Litle -- Now Processing
. . .
so on/so forth - until job finishes.
Any insight would be appreciated.
Thanks!

Support_Duane

Support Specialist
Posts: 66
Joined: Thu Mar 05, 2009 3:49 pm

Post by Support_Duane » Thu Oct 21, 2010 9:26 am
There is a client/server relationship here. Once a project has started in GoAnywhere there is no information returned to the user until the project has completed. Therefor there is no way to provide ongoing status reporting. If the user has access to GoAnywhere (i.e. can sign in to the GUI) then they could check the joblog which does get updated as the project runs. If they don’t have that access, then since there is no e-mail address available, perhaps you could add a task that would place a copy of the joblog in a folder where the user could access it.

HitchGA

Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Oct 20, 2010 11:55 am

Post by HitchGA » Thu Oct 21, 2010 9:54 am
That's pretty much what I understand of the software by itself, but my users are not savvy or confident enough to go hunting for other folders on a Windows server to read text files, that they would have to keep open and closing to see updates.

I was wondering if anyone had created a project like this in a way that collaborated successfully with a running GA project. Perhaps found a way to use the print task to a file and having some program read continuously from that and post to a user screen? I'm not sure if that would work either, just looking for ideas of approaching this from outside the box (or with the box, if that's more accurate).

Worst case, I have to tell them to just trust that it's running, though they won't know if something is running or hung up and then use SNDBRKMSG at the end of the process. It just opens up the chances of them coming over to me if they think it's taking any slightly different length of time to run.

Just hoping for alternate approaches that may have worked for others.

Thanks.

Support_Duane

Support Specialist
Posts: 66
Joined: Thu Mar 05, 2009 3:49 pm

Post by Support_Duane » Thu Oct 21, 2010 12:30 pm
If the process could be broken up into several projects, you could create a CL program that would do a SNDPGMMSG to the user before each project is run, thus letting your user know what's going on. Then once the final project has completed, you can send a completion message to the user.

If the process cannot be broken down into multiple projects, then you could place a SQL task either before or after each point for which you want information and write a record to a physical file. You would have to have some method in place that would allow the user to display the information in the file, and they would have to refresh it manually.
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