Automating AS400 screen processing

[Aaronjacob]

Hi, I want to automate the AS400 screen processing, it's basically a order management screen where I have to enter the customer and products details in more than one screen to process the orders. During regression testing I'm ending up in entering the orders details manually for 100 times and it's very time consuming.

Is there any way that I can provide the input to the AS400 screen from a spread sheet (all the required input data will be listed here). I have searched this in google but didn't found anything useful, there were suggestion to use VB but I don't know how to use VB.

I can't use the AS400 Macros here because the input is taken from the spread sheet. If some one has done this before, please provide the sample code.

Thanks!

[GLS400]

Re: Automating AS400 screen processing

Hi Aaronjacob:

Check out this article by Jon Paris & Susan Gantner:

http://www.ibmsystemsmag.com/CMSTemplates/IBMSystemsMag/Print.aspx?path=/ibmi/developer/rpg/testing-tools

Best of Luck
GLS

[Aaronjacob]

Re: Automating AS400 screen processing

Hi GLS400 - Thanks for your response. I have gone through the link and it's useful to generate the test data but my problem is not with test data.

I need a program which can read the test data from spread sheet and enter it on the AS400 screen1 in a particular field and then press enter to go to the next screen, and again enter some data in the screen 2.....I want to automate this process and avoid the manual effort to enter the data in AS400 screen.

AS400 pro's - Please help with any information/ideas that you have...thanks!

[Andrew K]

Re: Automating AS400 screen processing

Hello,

I have used a product called Reflection (was WRQ, now Attachmate ?), which did exactly what I think you are looking for; reading data from Excel and inputting into a 5250 screen ?

But it's script language is basically just VBA and I can find lots of homegrown examples on the net which use VBA. See here...

This might be of use too

I suspect most examples will use VB/VBA as that would be the easiest approach.

[JonBoy]

Re: Automating AS400 screen processing

Is there any way that I can provide the input to the AS400 screen from a spread sheet (all the required input data will be listed here). I have searched this in google but didn't found anything useful, there were suggestion to use VB but I don't know how to use VB.

The spreadsheet can of course easily be turned into a CSV file and that can easily be read by an RPG program. Of course you could also use Scott Klement's HSSF POI wrappers and read the spreadsheet direct but why bother.

You would then use Albert York's TNAPI (http://www.albertyork.yolasite.com/samples.php) and have your RPG program pretend to be an operator entering the data into the "5250".

[Aaronjacob]

Re: Automating AS400 screen processing

Hi Andrew, my requirement was similar to the demo explained in the itjungle, I copy the VB code and modify it according to my needs.
The itjungle link was very helpful. Thanks for your help!

[Aaronjacob]

Re: Automating AS400 screen processing

The spreadsheet can of course easily be turned into a CSV file and that can easily be read by an RPG program. Of course you could also use Scott Klement's HSSF POI wrappers and read the spreadsheet direct but why bother.

You would then use Albert York's TNAPI (http://www.albertyork.yolasite.com/samples.php) and have your RPG program pretend to be an operator entering the data into the "5250".

JonBoy, Thanks for your response! I'll go through the links and see if it best suits my requirement

[GLS400]

Re: Automating AS400 screen processing

I'm not sure if this will help or not

http://www.code400.com/forum/showthread.php/3937-Excel-VBA-to-extract-iSeries-data?highlight=excel

check out post #2

Best of luck
GLS

[JonBoy]

Re: Automating AS400 screen processing

I had forgotten to mention that Albert also includes a scripting utility (RUNTNSCR) that means you don't have to program to the API but can simply use a text file to supply the data and sequence of operations. You'd need to pre-process your spreadsheet data to merge the commands and data but it might be simpler than writing to the API.

Just a thought.