Expands job monitoring, comparisons, and more!

Help/Systems, the world’s leader in automated operations and business intelligence software for the IBM System i, announces the release of Robot/SPACE 3.0, the newest version of its software that automatically monitors and manages IBM System i disk space. Robot/SPACE eliminates disk storage crises by notifying users of potential trouble and provides tools for quickly finding disk storage problems.

Robot/SPACE job monitoring has been expanded to allow users to monitor the storage allocated by their QTEMP libraries and spooled files for active jobs on their system. All three job monitors can track detail information for every threshold exception, and can be configured using Robot/GUIDE.

With Robot/SPACE 3.0, users can compare two collections from the same collection group and list the libraries, objects, IFS directories, IFS files, output queues, or file members that have changed from one collection to the other.

Robot/SPACE 3.0 includes role-based security to authorize users for using specific product functionality or accessing specific data. The administrator can add, edit, delete, and copy roles, as well as assign users to specific roles.

Users can use On-Demand Reporting to quickly create ad hoc reports of collected records. These reports can be saved as an HTML, text, or PDF file for viewing, printing, or distributing.

For more information about the new release, contact your Help/Systems Regional Sales Manager at 1-800-328-1000 (U.S. and Canada), or your local distributor.

Related PDFs that may of interest

1. Robot/SPACE 3.0 Enhancements

2. Robot/SPACE 3.0 Comparison Checklist

3. Instructions for converting from Robot/SPACE Version 2.0 to Version 3.0

Give developers and administrators access without losing control of security

How much authority do your developers and administrators need on your production systems? Does each programmer need *ALLOBJ authority? Have you ever failed a security audit because of too many user profiles with too much special authority? When end users call your Help Desk for help with authority problems, does the Help Desk ask for the end user’s password and then sign on to test the authority issue?

Robot/SECURITY handles *ALLOBJ security issues
Robot/SECURITY can help you handle all of these issues. Robot/SECURITY is actually five security products in one package: Exit Point Monitoring, QAUDJRN Monitoring, Security Auditing, Forensics, and Profile Exchange. With Profile Exchange, a user can “swap” to a different profile, on demand, at any time. The Robot/SECURITY Administrator defines all Profile Exchange users and their access schedules.

The administrator can review all requests
At your option, the Robot/SECURITY Administrator can preview profile exchange requests and approve or deny them using e-mail, an i5/OS message, or Robot/SECURITY.

Robot/SECURITY logs all profile exchange activity
Robot/SECURITY provides a comprehensive log of profile exchange activity, including the requester and the activity associated with the request. At the end of a profile exchange session, Robot/SECURITY automatically e-mails the user’s activity log to the Robot/SECURITY Administrator. Anyone who needs to can view the detail online, or in a printed report, and can use the Exchange Audit History List panel to drill into QAUDJRN records to review the events of the exchange activity.

Call 1-800-328-1000 today to request a FREE demo or a FREE 30-day trial of Robot/SECURITY.

Contributed by Tom Huntington, Vice President of Technical Services

Can multiple people use profile exchange to exchange to the same alternate user profile?
Yes, they can. When multiple users exchange to the same profile, it can be a little harder to investigate which user made a specific change while using the profile. You need to refer to the Robot/SECURITY Activity List to determine which user was using Profile Exchange at that time to determine who was responsible for the change.

When a user has successfully exchanged to a profile with greater access privileges, can they use that authority to create new Robot/SCHEDULE jobs or other disruptive acts?
Yes, they could. However, if you use the security features of the Robot products correctly, you can prevent this type of mischief. For example, you can lock out alternate profiles from sensitive areas. If a user performs a malicious action while using Profile Exchange, Robot/SECURITY maintains a complete log of events to help you identify and prosecute the perpetrator.

During the time on the Access Schedule that a user is allowed to do a profile exchange, can they exchange as often as they want to?
Yes, users can exchange as many times as they wish within the times allowed on their access schedule.

Can you schedule profile exchanges within Robot/SCHEDULE jobs?
Yes, you can schedule profile exchanges as part of a Robot/SCHEDULE job by inserting the commands to start (RSESTREXC) and end (RSEENDEXC) profile exchange.

Note: This exchange affects only the batch job submitted by Robot/SCHEDULE; it has no effect on any interactive jobs.

SEQUEL ViewPoint provides grid control features that let you format your view results. You can:

• Choose contrasting colors for even/odd result rows
• Format different aspects of your results (such as headings, rows, and selection area) distinctively, including font attributes (style, size, weight, and color) and foreground/background colors.
• Use conditional formatting to highlight exceptions
• Use the Fast Group-and-Sum function for non-summarized data

Let’s look at how you might use some of these capabilities. Two sample order files, ORDHEAD and ORDLINE, are shipped with SEQUEL. Using these files, you can create a very simple SEQUEL view with the following statement:

SELECT cusno.1, ordno.1, prdno.2, quano.2, actsp.2, quano*actsp NAME(extprc)
COLHDG(”Extended” “Price”)
FROM sequelex/ordhead,sequelex/ordline
INNER JOIN ordno.1=ordno.2
ORDER BY cusno

Then, you can use ViewPoint to format the results. In this example, we grouped the results for each customer number, even though the statements creating the view do not contain any group or sum syntax.

Set user/desktop defaults
You can set default grid formatting at the user/desktop level, or you can apply formatting to a view. To apply formatting to a view, you must define the formatting during a ViewPoint Design View session. ViewPoint saves the formatting as part of the view definition. View formatting overrides the defaults set at the user/desktop level (for that view only).

Format view results
Here’s how you format view results:

1. Open an existing view in a ViewPoint Design View session. If you are creating a new view, do a Save or Save As operation first. Display your results.

2. In the results window, select the Format > Layout option to continue.

3. Open the Layout Format window. Select the General tab to specify whether you want to have alternating colors for even/odd rows and your color selections. Use the grid line drop-down menu to select a grid line format from the selection list.

4. Select the Grouping tab to specify whether you want to enable the automated grouping function. If this option is checked, the results may be grouped as shown in the first example. To use this feature, you simply drag-and-drop a column heading (such as Customer Number) to the top margin of the results window and SEQUEL groups the data by that value.

5. Use the Style Editor tab to pick one of the styles (sections) in the results and specify formatting.

6. If you are using a Design View session, SEQUEL enables the Column Editor tab. Use this tab to specify conditional highlighting for special occurrences of data in the view results. For example, we could highlight a value like a low inventory level. When this value occurs, the amount shows up in red. Use this feature when you are creating a SEQUEL dashboard with key performance indicators.

7. Finally, use the Printing Options tab to apply print settings when sending the results to a network printer.

See SEQUEL ViewPoint’s help text for additional examples and information about grid control options.

Contributed by Steven Smith, Technical Writer

I am planning an operating system (OS) upgrade. How do I find out what I need to do for Help/Systems products?
Call us before you update your OS to a new level. Some product versions may not be compatible with the upgraded OS. Each product needs to be reviewed to see if it needs updates before you update the OS.

What is the easiest way to set up a Report Set in Robot/REPORTS?
Use Robot/GUIDE. Robot/GUIDE ensures you don’t make typos when defining comparison information and prevents you from missing steps in the setup procedure.

When our System i was put into restricted state, several critical jobs did not run. We have monitor jobs that notify the operator if these jobs are not running, but since Robot/SCHEDULE was not active they didn’t work. How can I make sure that doesn’t happen again?
Robot/SCHEDULE provides two ways of working with jobs that are missed while it is inactive. On the General System Defaults panel there is an option called “Run Autowork at Startup of ROBOT.” When this is set to Y (Yes), Robot/SCHEDULE automatically runs all missed jobs for the current date (since 12:01 a.m.) as soon as it is restarted. If you want more control than running all missed jobs, you can run the Autowork function manually using Option 4 of the Control Menu. If you select the option to display missed jobs, you can control which ones to run and go back to the prior day as well.

I am using Robot/SAVE to back up the IFS. Can I omit QNTC servers from the backup?
Unfortunately, you cannot omit these servers. However, you can use the following command to expedite the process of connecting to the servers for SAV command processing:

ADDENVVAR ENVVAR(QZLC_SERVERLIST) VALUE(’1′) LEVEL(*SYS)

Note: You may want to to check with IBM before implementing this environment variable.

Send jobs Host-to-Host or Node-to-Node with Robot/NETWORK 10.0

If you haven’t discovered Robot/NETWORK packets, you are in for a treat. You can use Robot/NETWORK packets to centrally control and maintain:

* Robot/SCHEDULE job setups

* Robot/CONSOLE message sets, message tables, and message groups

* Robot/REPORTS report sets

Once you start using packets, you no longer have to sign on to multiple systems and create the same objects over and over. Not only do packets save you time, but they also reduce errors caused by repetition. You create an object once and use it many times.

Creating Robot/SCHEDULE packets
To access Robot/SCHEDULE packets, go into Robot/NETWORK 10.0 and click Product Master. Then, right-click Robot/SCHEDULE and select Explore. When the Robot/SCHEDULE 10.0 Explorer (graphical user interface) displays, you can create Robot/SCHEDULE jobs and other objects, such as date objects and OPAL objects, that you may need to complete your job setup. Use the same steps you would use if you were creating the job or object in a production Robot/SCHEDULE environment. Then you can send these jobs to remote Nodes. (Or, if you have a multi-Host environment, you can send these jobs to another Host’s Product Master.)

Note: Jobs or objects created in the Product Master library of Robot/SCHEDULE are not actually in production in the job setup of any system until you send them to a system.

Changing a packet that has been sent
If you send a job or object using packets and need to make changes to it, go into the Robot/SCHEDULE Product Master, make the changes, and send them. You can send the changes to all systems, or a selected group of systems. And, you can restrict the objects that will be sent with the job. For example, if you made changes to the environment only, you can avoid sending other objects that are attached to the job.

You can use the Product Master to remove or reverse changes you have made to jobs using a packet. If you move a change into production from the Product Master and it doesn’t work as expected, simply reverse that packet. Reversing a packet removes the changes made by that packet and returns the job to the way it was before the packet was applied. You even can delete a job created by a packet.

Sending an active job to the Product Master
Perhaps you have a production job set up on one system that you want to share with many systems. Use the command RBTNETNODE/RBNSNDRBT to send the job to the Robot/SCHEDULE Product Master. Once the job is in the Product Master, you can distribute it to as many systems as needed. In the future, you can make changes to it and distribute the changes to various sites.

Reviewing packet activity
When you send a packet from the Product Master, Robot/NETWORK keeps a record of the event. You can view this history online, or run the Packet History Report to see what objects have been sent from the Host to remote Nodes.

Sending jobs Node-to-Node
Using the Robot/SCHEDULE Explorer on the Robot/NETWORK Host, you also can send jobs Node-to-Node. When you right-click on a job on a Node system, a menu displays. When you select SEND, the job is sent directly to another Node system.

Note: When you send a job Node-to-Node, you bypass the Product Master and its benefits (such as the ability to share the job with other systems and the ability to maintain the job from a central site). Jobs sent Node-to-Node do not show up in the Packet History Report.

Working with green screen products
For green screen Robot products, such as Robot/REPORTS and Robot/CONSOLE, you create and send packets using the Robot/NETWORK 10 Product Master menu option on the Host system. From this option, you can create the Robot/CONSOLE and Robot/REPORTS objects you need to set up these products.

As with Robot/SCHEDULE, you create the object just as if you were in the actual product and distribute it to the remote Nodes from the Product Master. If your Report Set or Message Set contains OPAL, the remote system automatically compiles the code when the packet is applied.

Unlike working with Robot/SCHEDULE, you cannot send Robot/CONSOLE or Robot/REPORTS packets Host-to-Host or Node-to-Node. Distribution is limited to sending packets from the Robot/NETWORK Host to its attached Nodes.

You can send existing Message Sets and Report Sets from a remote system to the Product Master. For Robot/REPORTS, use the command RBTNETNODE/RBNSNDREP, and for Robot/CONSOLE use the command RBTNETNODE/RBNSNDRBC. These commands put the objects in the appropriate Product Master and let you change and distribute them to multiple systems.

Summary
Once you discover how easy it is to use packets, you’ll wonder why you haven’t been using them all along! Packets are a great way to maintain multiple products across multiple systems from a central site. And, with Robot/NETWORK’s security system, you can control access to the Product Master. You can limit access to a single user or a group of users who are allowed to create packets.

Contributed by Terri Preston, Technical Consultant