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reconstructing a process without documentation

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  • reconstructing a process without documentation

    I am trying to reconstruct a process that another user was the sole person in charge of doing. However there is no documentation or notes about how they executed it and all I know is that the last time it was probably done was early last month.

    I wasn't able to find anything in the QEZJOBLOG to indicate what they were doing and I do know the person's username, just not the job they were running (which they probably intiated from a menu with no extended help support rather than the CL).

    Does anyone have any suggestions about where I can look in the system to try and figure out what they did and how they did it?

    I did try running a CPYAUDJRNE command, but I don't have the permissions to use it.

  • #2
    You could try looking in DSPLOG in case it was a job submitted to batch. You might have to generate spooled output that would allow you to search by user name.

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    • cronot2
      cronot2 commented
      Editing a comment
      I tried that, but unfortunately the last time this was done was so long ago that there the log doesn't go back that far. It sounds like the last time this was done was about a month or two ago.

  • #3
    Start with attempting to contact the person who used to run it, assuming you can. Talk to people in your own organization who work with what this process does. What does the process do, what files does it use what does it output. This can point you as to where to look and what to search for. If you have any job names or specific date and times you could look at the history log. No one can give you an answer beyond the basics of trying to research this since you have only described this as being a Process.

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    • cronot2
      cronot2 commented
      Editing a comment
      All the others have been able to tell me so far is that the system would be taken down nightly to run a financial process that would then send the information to the finance department.

      I assume that the company has not reached out to the previous employee for some reason and we are trying to find if they left any kind of documentation or if we can locate some log that will at least give us a starting point. I have been able to get some printer names from some of the people in the finance department, but nobody seems certain when the last time the process was run successfully.

      I am working with them to see if they can identify file names or queues for me. Hopefully we can find some document somewhere that will give us a starting point.

  • #4
    The best thing is to contact the person as DAGoooo suggests.
    It might be possible for you if you are OK with him/her.
    Tell the person you need some help in case the person is not so "friendly" with your company.
    In some cases this is the way to do it.

    I assume you don't have the source for the program.
    You could try to start the debugger for the program and hope that observability has not been removed.
    Then you have the source code and comments available.

    For CL programs you could try RTVCLSRC to get the source.

    Another method is DMPOBJ for the program.
    This will not give you the program it self but you might be lucky to find some information.
    Many years ago I had to use this to compare code in production with the code in the development environment
    where a former colleague had complete messed the source up.

    Comment


    • cronot2
      cronot2 commented
      Editing a comment
      I may end up asking if they are alright with me reaching out to him sinc ethe company would have to provide me with contact information (I never knew the individual and was brought on after he was gone).

      The only thing we've found so far are some report names under QSYSPRT with a job number and job name that generated it, but the actual spooled files were deleted.

      Maybe we can use that to locate the program somehow to try your other suggestions?

  • #5
    I have found out that one of the last things run was a batch job submitted by another job ACCMISDo2A, but I'm having trouble trying to pull a log up for that job and it's job number.

    Turns out that "job" that submitted the batch job I was looking into is listed as display device (the ACCMISD02A).

    Does that give me anything to go on for finding out how it submitted a batch job to the system?

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    • #6
      It might be necessary to work "backwards".
      With this I mean that you know some of the reports and perhaps files that are used by the process.
      Start with the last program and see where this is called.

      A great help might be to save the program references (DSPPGMREF) and then create a query searching in that file.
      Of course it gives some challenges when a job submits to another job but it might be possible to search anf find where this happens.

      Do you have the sources for the programs?
      Then PDM is your friend to scan the sources and find what is called.

      Comment


      • cronot2
        cronot2 commented
        Editing a comment
        I don't know if we have sources. However, working with another tech, we did find that the program that takes care of the montly zeroing out for the financial files didn't appear to be anything from IBM that she was familiar with.

        Now if I can just find the report names. I got the names of printers where the reports were being printed out to, but I couldn't find anything saved in the queue for them.

    • #7
      Well, I think I found something that might help. I found an obj in a library that says it's a nightly batch job stream.

      The program file name ends with a CL and when I use workobj *all/BSYE00CL* *PGM, it shows the object having a CLLE attribute.

      I also tried using dsppgm library/program command and it returned no copyright information about it.

      Does this mean it might be a custom CL program someone made to run these jobs?

      Comment


      • #8
        Does DSPOBJD Library/Program *PGM show you the last time it ran ?

        How about FNDSTRPDM to search where the programs are referenced ?

        Get HAWKEYE (trial version?) and see if it helps ?

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