Recommended Method for Ordering Time Zone Jobs

Prior to version 6.1.00, the Active Jobs file contained only jobs that were ordered for the current working day. When the end of the working day arrived, the New Day procedure removed from the Active Jobs file all jobs with that ODATE, provided that the setting of the MAXWAIT parameter of specific jobs did not prevent such removal. Jobs so removed ceased to be eligible for submission.

As of version 6.1.00, the New Day procedure does not remove any Time Zone job from the Active Jobs file until the end of the ODATE at the Time Zone of the job, when the job is no longer eligible for submission.

With the introduction of the Time Zone feature, jobs may be pre-ordered before the ODATE specified in them, and may remain in the Active Jobs file after that ODATE.

As a result

• jobs may stay in the Active Jobs file for more than 24 hours
• the Active Jobs file may contain jobs that are to run on different ODATEs
• the Active Jobs file may consequently be much larger
• processing may consequently be slowed

This problem can be avoided by doing the following:

1. Create a separate table for each time zone that you use, and put the jobs for each time zone in the appropriate table.
2. Define a User Daily job with an order statement for each table created in step 1, as follows:
   1. Set an AutoEdit value in one of the following ways:
      • If the site date format is MM/DD/YY:

        //* %%SET %%DT=%%OMONTH.%%ODAY.%%OYEAR

      • If the site date format is DD/MM/YY:

        //* %%SET %%DT=%%ODAY.%%OMONTH.%%OYEAR

      • For other date formats, use the appropriate combination of %%OMONTH, %%ODAY, and %%OYEAR
   2. Set the value of ODATE to %%DT. When the User Daily job runs, this value is replaced by an appropriate date. The date depends on the setting of the GDFORWRD parameter in member CTMPARM of the IOA PARM library.
      • If GDFORWRD is set to Y, %%DT contains the date of the next day.
      • If GDFORWRD is set to N, %%DT contains the current Control-M work date.
   3. Set the ODATEOPT parameter to RUN. The ODATE value is then used to determine the working date on which the jobs run. Note that ODATEOPT can be abbreviated to ODOPT.

      An example order statement:

      ORDER DD=DALIB,MEMBER=TIMEZONE,ODATE=%%DT,ODOPT=RUN

      The TIMEZONE member in the above example is the name of one of the tables created in step 1.

      For more details on the ORDER statement, refer to the CTMJOB utility in the INCONTROL for z/OS Utilities Guide.

3. Modify the User Daily table, using the following parameters:
   1. Set the time zone to the appropriate value.
   2. Set the time for the User Daily job so that it runs just after the beginning of the working day in that time zone.

If you follow this procedure, jobs are ordered only when necessary, resulting in a smaller Active Jobs file and faster processing.