IBM Mainframe Forum

This is my first post, so if any technical terms are used wrongly please suggest me.

When we log in to TSO session, after firing the command DA , we can see that active jobs are classified as column of details as starting from NP, JOBNAME, Stepname........ zAAP-Ntime.

Can anyone please explain the definitions of all the classification, as I already know few of them...

Most of the columns are self-explanatory: JOBNAME StepName ProcStep, for example. The columns that SDSF displays are defined by the Systems Programmer, and you can select some, and I believe you have some control over their order. The NP column provides you with the ability to select the job for more detailed displays, but I have no idea what NP is supposed to mean. S displays all the data sets, ? displays a list of data sets for the job. You may be able to enter C to cancel the job or CD to cancel the job with a dump. ZAAP and ZIP represent co-processors that can provide very cheap CPU clicks for IBM approved processing, but some vendors, CA for sure, have figured out how to horn in on those co-processors.

Hi Steve, it's my pleasure to hear back from you as this is my first ever query I posted through forum and you are the first to give me a suggestion.

Your suggestion gave me an overall fine overview. Since I am new to mainframes I just wanted to explore the TSO screens as much as I can... Friends please go on and give me some more suggestions on this.

PF1 gives you access to tutorials of the SDSF panel(s).

Just make sure that you are in the panel you want info for and hit PF1

All the application running under ISPF use the PF1 key for help
using PF1 from the main panel will usually go thru an almost full tutorial of the application
this behavior is true for SDSF also
so no reason for anybody to rewrite what the manuals might explain in a better way

for TSO
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/ ... s/IKJ4BK80

for ISPF
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/ ... s/ISPZPM61

for the home of all You might want to know about IBM products
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/os/zos/ ... index.html

Hi Enrico,, thanks for the link you provided..

It is worth to refer that link...

Actually, to be picky, you do not 'fire' the DA command from TSO - you start up SDSF and then enter the DA command - although this may be the default panel when starting SDSF - probably depends on the site.

NicC wrote:Actually, to be picky, you do not 'fire' the DA command from TSO - you start up SDSF and then enter the DA command - although this may be the default panel when starting SDSF - probably depends on the site.

Agree about the "fire", but what's stopping a site from adding DA to a command table to give direct access to SDSF's DA panel?

what's stopping a site from adding DA to a command table to give direct access to SDSF's DA panel

Not a lot but why would you? If you do it for DA why not do it for all options. And if you do it for SDSF why not do it for all other facilities that have a front-end menu? Big menu!

And if you do it for SDSF why not do it for all other facilities that have a front-end menu? Big menu!

nothing prevents You from doing it
there are lots of examples on how to add commands to the ISPCMDS table on the fly
and almost any IT professional I know uses such approach to add shortcuts according to his/her keyboard stomping style
see for example
http://www.lbdsoftware.com/ispftools.html

I myself had one working as an edit macro, You would edit a dataset with the commands to add/replace
and invoking the macro each line would be added/replaced into the ispcmds
and it had a counterpart which would <dump> the content of the table into the current edit dataset

if anybody is interested I might look around for it