General Information

The GROUP parameter facilitates the handling of balancing missions. It enables the retrieval of information on the balancing missions of a specific group, usually by the Online Tracking and Control facility, or by the Reporting facility.

Groups can be defined using the Database Variable Online facility.

The group name appears in all important messages relating to the balancing missions of the group.

Jobs, missions, and variables may be grouped for simulation so that complete systems can be tested as a unit.

During rule execution, the group name specification is checked for existence in the Control-M/Analyzer Database Variable file. Several invocation methods exist that determine the group name under that a rule executes:

• direct invocation by a job step or program

  The group specified by the job step or program is used. If no group is specified by the job step or program, the GROUP specification in the rule definition is used.

• invocation by mission

  GROUP receives its value from the mission definition. In this case, the group name specified by the mission definition overrides the group name specified by the rule definition.

• invocation by other CONTROL products

  When the rule is called using statement DO CTBRULE in Control-M or Control-D, GROUP receives its value from the Control-M job scheduling definition or the Control-D decollating mission. In this case, the group name specified by the job or decollating definition overrides the group name specified by the rule definition.

A detailed explanation of all GROUP features is provided in Introduction.