ACR/Detail 4.5 Release Notes

ACR/Detail 4.5 enhancements include:

 

Job Progress Messages

Users can monitor the progress of a job by choosing to display informational messages in the System Messages Report (SYSOUT). On IBM i, the messages are displayed in the Job Log.

This option is available under basic job information. For batch processing, the option to display job progress messages can be overridden in the JCL.

You can use this feature to make sure that a job runs as expected, or to implement performance improvements for long-running jobs.

Partial Driver Key

Driver file processing includes data based on the presence or absence of matching keys. You can now specify a partial key length to match the data. The partial key length can be used to include or exclude data from subsequent files.

This feature adds a new work file, UNIWRK5, which is a driver key work file. If you are upgrading from a previous release, you will need to add this work file to the reconciliation JCL to use this feature.

You can use this feature to limit the data processed within a file to specific areas of business. For example, you might want to process only the data for a specific city and state combination.

Hash Value in Key

A key field can be hashed and stored in the History database instead of storing the original key value when it exceeds the maximum 40 bytes allowed. The hashed key field consists of 8 bytes: bytes 1-4 store the first 4 bytes of the original key and bytes 5-8 store the hash value returned from the hashing routine.

Using hash translation for a key field may decrease performance by approximately 10%, thus increasing CPU time. However, if you are currently using Dynamic Translation processing, switching to hash translation may improve performance (CPU time) by approximately 50%.

This feature can extend your key identifiers to the length needed by your transactions.

Out of Balance Job Tolerance and Rule Counts

You can now set tolerances at the job level based on the number of keys that are out of balance. Job level tolerance can be set for a count or amount. The job level out-of-balance (OOB) amount is accumulated based on an item you specified for the job level total.

Rule-level values can also be specified for accumulation. Rule-level amounts pertain to standard rules only.

The out-of-balance totals for the job and the rules are printed as a separate section at the end of the Control Report. The new section can be printed even if the Control Report is turned off. The totals can be sent to Infogix Insight® if the ability to send XML files is enabled.

You can use this feature to reject files with a large percentage of errors or files for which the error threshold has been exceeded.

User Report with Dynamic Translation

In the User Report, a new item type, KO, enables a job that uses dynamic translation to print the original key value for the page header or column item type. When specified, the report prints the original key value before translation, up to 80 bytes. This feature, like dynamic translation, is for ACR/Detail only.

This feature allows you to use the User Report for jobs with keys that use dynamic translation.

Cross-check in UNIUPDT

A cross check is added to the Update Program (UNIUPDT) to prevent text literals for rules with a numeric type.

Text literals must use text as the comparison type. Rules that incorrectly specify the comparison type will now receive a #UPD615E message.

Free-Form Report Improvements

The following improvements have been made to the Free-Form Report for ACR/Detail.

• A user can specify the length for the report. Previously, a page break always occurred after 55 lines.
• A user can define a key break to organize and print totals for the information on the report based on a partial key, for example, by department.

This feature was in use on other platforms and is now available in ACR/Detail in the IBM i platform.

Return Code for No Extraction

A new option at the job- and user-option levels allows you to set a non-zero return code indicating that no records were extracted. This will alert you to check for missing or empty input source files or improperly coded controls. These return codes will be passed to Infogix Insight.

This feature was in use on other platforms and is now available in ACR/Detail in the IBM i platform.

User and Free-Form Reports for RLQ Jobs

Multi-level reconciliation allows the qualifiers the option to use the base job definitions. When this option is turned on, the items, calculations, rules, messages, and reports from the base job are used in the qualifier as well.

A new RLQ Restart Report flag has been added that allows you to set the Use base job definitions flag to Y, but not use the reports from the base job. This allows you to create an additional, entirely new User Report, Free-form Report, or both for the RLQ job.

This feature was in use on other platforms and is now available in ACR/Detail in the IBM i platform.

Extraction Program Interface (EPI)

For EPI, you use an extraction program code generator to create an Enterprise COBOL extraction program that corresponds to the file definitions for each input source.

A test utility is provided to test the generated EPI programs before you modify your application with EPI calls.

In previous versions, the code generator produced an RPG extraction program. This change keeps the EPI feature identical to the other platform versions, which makes the rules more portable.

This feature was in use on other platforms and is now available in ACR/Detail in the IBM i platform.

Sort on Descending Keys

By default, ACR/Detail reports and freeform output files print the selected keys in alphabetical (ascending) sort order. You now have the option to use descending order or skip the sort if the keys are already in the desired order, which can save processing time.

Printing in descending order can be especially useful if your keys are dollar amounts, and you want to print the largest amount first.

This feature was in use on other platforms and is now available in ACR/Detail in the IBM i platform.

Dynamic Translation

Dynamic translation allows you to exceed the 40-byte limit for the reconciliation key length and still maintain the original key value to print on reports. You can use a dynamic translation table to have a reconciliation key up to 400 bytes. You can specify as many as 5 key segments of up to 80 bytes.

The option to use a dynamic translation table is set on the Build Key Value Information screen.

A new database utility, Dynamic Translation DB (DINT), initializes the dynamic translation database, which is required for the dynamic translation feature.

When you run reconciliation using the dynamic translation database, each of the long key segments will be written to the newly-initialized dynamic translation database and associated with an 8-byte identifier, which will be used to write to the key field area of the history database.

The Control Report will show the 80-byte key segment. Listings of the history database and all other reports will show the 8-byte identifier, unless you specify to print the original key, which is available for Free-Form and User Reports.

This feature was in use on other platforms and is now available in ACR/Detail in the IBM i platform.

Suspense Aging Report

The Print Suspense Aging report utility allows you to generate a report that summarizes the contents of history in the suspense database. The report summarizes all keys or some levels of the key in terms of the age of the specified items.

Custom aging allows you to specify aging criteria for any or all five aging rows on the report, thus determining the amount of suspended claims for each category.

This feature was in use on other platforms and is now available in ACR/Detail in the IBM i platform.

 

Cross-reference File Definitions Report

A new cross-reference report is available for file definitions. This report shows all of the jobs where a particular file definition is used, including alternate job IDs and model jobs.

You can run this new report against two definition databases simultaneously; for example, you can check the file definition name usage for test and production environments at the same time. The report simplifies the process to find balancing job definitions that use the same file definitions and thus avoid potential deletion or duplication issues when you write new file definitions.

PDF Reader User Program

A new user program, UUPPDF, allows users to extract data from PDF files. This program is for Windows only. The program processes the stream objects in a PDF file and captures the characters that can be read by ACR/Summary and ACR/Detail.

An optional parameter can be specified to display the characters in the SYSOUT file, where you can use the mark and capture method to write the extraction rules.

With this feature, you can compare PDF file data to the source data to ensure that the PDF is accurate before you print it or send it to customers.

Auto-position User Report Columns

For ACR/Detail and for enhanced format in ACR/Summary, a new option enables a user to print fixed-space columns. By entering the start position and spacing, you can print the User Report with the same number of spaces between each column. Optionally, you can enter the column width.

This feature facilitates the generation of a User Report in an easier-to-read format.

Report Print Options

Print and write options for reports and output files were standardized to allow four options for the User Report, Recap Report, Free-form Report, Control Report and UNIDATA2. The standard options follow:

• do not print
• print all
• print out-of-balance only
• print in-balance only

This feature removes previous printing limitations for reports and output files.

User Option for Time Separator

In the User Options Files, a new Time Element Separator field allows users to specify the separator between the hour, minutes, and seconds in reports. The default separator is a colon (:).

This feature allows you to standardize the print formats on ACR reports to use the same values as your company reports.

Include Date Format in XML Outputs

This enhancement includes the User Options date format for reports in the XML file sent to Infogix Perceive®. The date format tag pertains to Control Reports, User Reports, and Free-Form Reports in both ACR/Summary and ACR/Detail.

This change allows Infogix Perceive to recognize the intended format.

Free-Form Report Width Sent to Infogix Insight

This enhancement includes the report width that was specified for the Free-Form Report in the XML file that is sent to Infogix Insight. Sending the width to Infogix Insight allows the report to be generated as a PDF in portrait mode for smaller widths or landscape mode for wider widths.

This feature enables customers to create reports in ACR, generate PDFs in Infogix Insight, and use the PDFs for printing, mailing, and other business needs.

Select Statements Allow Comparison against Extended Values

When you define the selection criteria to evaluate records for balancing or reconciliation, or for building external translation tables, a new option allows you to indicate that the source value, which can be from an input source or extraction variable, will be compared to one or more extended literals (numbers with 16 to 30 digits or text values with 9 to 80 characters).

For balancing and reconciliation, you can compare the source value against either individual extended values or ranges of extended values.

For building an external translation table, you can compare the source value against individual extended values only. Ranges are not supported.

This feature was in use on other platforms and is now available in ACR/Detail and ACR/Summary in the IBM i platform.

Item Values and Descriptions in Messages

Messages will now be much more useful because they allow you to identify the items that resulted in the out-of-balance situation. You can do this by including the value and/or description of one or more items as part of the message text. For text and numeric items, you can also specify the maximum length of the value or description to include in the message (numeric item values that do not fit will show asterisks, and generate a #U warning). For text items that display the value, or for any item that displays the description, you can specify the first position of the text to include.

This feature was in use on other platforms and is now available in ACR/Detail and ACR/Summary in the IBM i platform.

Trace Reports

Two new trace reports have been added to ACR/Detail and ACR/Summary on the IBM i platform.

For Regular Input Sources

You can create a Trace Report when you run a reconciliation job in access mode 6 or 7. The report is useful in debugging because it provides a formatted list of the selection groups, details on processing of each record read, and notification of key related processes.

The report in your output will be UNIETR.

For External Translation Tables

You can now request a Trace Report for the processing of an external translation table. This report shows the following information:

• The definitions for building the table.
• The details of each translation attempt.
• The processing of each definition against each record in the external data source, including the values that were selected and loaded into the table columns.

Audit Trail to Infogix Insight

The audit trail shows the user ID and the date and time of Infogix ACR control definition changes. The audit information is captured when a new Infogix ACR control definition is identified, or an existing control definition is updated.

Audit information can be sent to Infogix Insight® if the ability to send XML files is enabled

This feature was in use on other platforms and is now available in ACR/Detail and ACR/Summary in the IBM i platform.

Direct Extraction from Delimited Files

A new indicator on input sources and translation tables allows you to extract values directly from delimited data files. The new feature allows you to specify multiple delimiters, including the tab character, for keys, items, and columns.

This feature was in use on other platforms and is now available in ACR/Detail and ACR/Summary in the IBM I platform.

CL File Overrides

File overrides in CL can now be processed on the IBM i platform. The OVRDBF command will now be recognized by ACR processing for input sources.

This feature was in use on other platforms and is now available in ACR/Detail and ACR/Summary in the IBM i platform.