Job
Assistance is a powerful report and batch job management
system that will help users manage their own reporting
tasks, set up report and batch job scheduling, and
reduce needless and redundant output generated on
system printers. With Job Assistance, it is possible
to setup a controlled report and batch processing
management environment and will reduce the costs of
installation and de-installation of production and
ad-hoc reporting and job processing.
Job
Assistance currently runs on HP/9000 Unix servers
and was developed in PowerHouse with CISAM file structures.
It can be easily integrated into current application
systems with minimal effort.
Major
Features
The
following is a summary of the major features of Job
Assistance:
For
the End-User:
Ability
to launch jobs through a menu-based
interface.
Provision
to easily enter parameters when
issuing jobs where applicable (e.g.
account code, reporting month, etc.).
Dynamic
redirection of output to any system
output device (e.g. printers, email,
ftp).
Saving of jobs/output to disk for later viewing/printing.
Banners on output to printers. (optional)
For
the Application Developer:
Ability
to easily setup jobs through simple
table definitions. Many jobs are defined
by a single table entry.
Automatic handling of error checking
and logging.
Flexibility
to insert JCL (shell scripting) into
jobs as required.
Ability
to define various job-related defaults
that make job setup and issuing easy
and flexible.
Device
definitions that allow for coding-free
implementation of device independence.
Job groupings of related jobs that
appear together for selection by the
User.
Grouped
output from multiple reports to a
single output device.
For
the System Administrator:
Fences & queries.
Automated job cleanup on a schedule.
Privilaged jobs.
Advanced user-level security
Guided
Tour & User Manual
Check
out the guided
tour, it is intended to give a brief overview
of Job Assistance and to give the reader a feel for
how Job Assistance works. Screen shots of the various
parts of Job Assistance are listed along with a brief
narrative that describes the purpose or function of
the screen.
The
tour is laid out to first show the various Job Assistance
tables followed be the definition of jobs and then
the issuing and reviewing of jobs. The last thing
covered is how it is possible to create custom-defined
job issuing screens that prompt users for job parameters.
