Screens and Procedures

SCT Screen Builder

Online screens and procedures are changed through an SCT facility called Screen Builder. This is a separate pseudo-system of the online SCT environment. To enter the Screen Builder facility, logon to the online system in the desired system except use your screen builder operator ID The logon screen is reached in the appropriate CICS environment by using the ZCTL application.

Definitions

What Is a Screen?: A screen is evidenced by an online application. It displays data for the user based on definitions associated with the screen. A screen may be designed for inquiry or for update.
What Is a Procedure?: A procedure is a program-like entity that controls how online screens operate. It provides the flow associated with the ZSS system. Every screen has an undeeerlying procedure. When a screen is requested, it is actually the procedure which is invoked. Whereever possible, screens associated with procedures have the same identifier as the procedure.

Screens and the DBD

When a screen is designed, fields are indicated. The screen design facility then prompts for information about each field indicated on the screen. Only elements defined in the DBD for the desired system may be used. This is important to remember. If a new element must be defined, it must first be defined in the DBD before it can be used on a screen.

Screen/DBD Synchronization

When a screen is invoked in an online ZSS environment, ZSS compares the date stamp of the screen to the last date-stamp recorded for it. If these are different, the ZSS system indicates a synchronization problem. This prevents a possible situation where a screen may have a data element which is not in the DBD.

Date stamps get updated when a screen is updated online. They also get updated during the DBD process. A special job (AU3118Zx) also exists to force synchronization.

How can a synchronization problem occur? There are basically three ways. SCT delivers screen changes in a manner that they can be updated through a batch process. This procedure does not date-stamp the resultant screen. In addition, it is occasionally necessary to copy screens between CICS environments (PROD to TEST, for example). When this is done, synchronization is also lost. Our migration procedure for getting screens into production also does not force a date stamp. In each of these cases, if a DBD run is not required, the AU3118Zx job must be run to re-synchronize.

Other Screen Builder Functions

There are two other functions on the Screen Builder menu.

Security: This is the entry point for handling base system security.
Voice System Maintenance: This is entry to online maintenance for the Z-Voice Response system associated with SIS.

OIT Applications Support

Last Modified: Tuesday, 02-Mar-2004 13:22:15 CST