ACR/Detail 4.2 Release Notes

ACR/Detail 4.2 enhancements include:

Reverse Sign in Extraction

You can now change the sign of the data you are extracting. This allows you to add both positive and negative numbers to find true totals of the values extracted.

Display Message for Empty Free-Form Report

Currently, when no keys are selected to print in the ACR/Detail Free-Form Report, the report does not print. This enhancement enables you to be alerted when the report is empty, so you can correct the situation. To implement this, a new flag has been added to always print the report. If you set this flag and no keys are selected to print, the report will print the headings and the line “NO RECONCILIATION KEYS SELECTED FOR PRINTING.” This information can be passed to Infogix Insight by setting the XML option to Generate.

Option to Sort Keys in Descending Order

Previously, ACR/Detail reports and freeform output files printed the selected keys in alphabetical (ascending) sort order. You now have the option to use descending order (or skip sorting of keys to 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.

Multiple New Features Make Freeform Output File (UNIDAT2) Highly Versatile

The Freeform Output file now provides practically unlimited flexibility, enabling you to generate the file in delimited format and customize the contents to your specifications.

With this enhancement you can include all the values that you can include in a Freeform Report. In addition to the information types supported previously, you can include history items, calculated items, and the following:

• Rule information (return code, message, and standard rule variance )
• Job information, (job id, run date, and run time)
• Reconciliation key information (overall return code, message, and cycle number)

In addition to having the file generated in delimited format, you will be able to do the following:

• Specify headers for any of the data
• Customize numeric items (unpack them, reverse the sign, and include a decimal)
• Justify and include only part of text items
• Include separators in dates

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/empty input source files or improperly coded controls. These return codes will be passed to Infogix Insight.

Delete Item References in Reports and List Item References

This enhancement makes cleaning up obsolete items from a job even easier. When you delete an item, references to the item in the User Report, Free-Form report, messages, and the ACR/Detail Free-Form Output File are deleted automatically. You receive a display informing you of these deletions and listing any history items, calculated items, or rules referenced by the deleted item so that you can modify or delete them.

Multiple Delete in the z/OS Job Window

This user friendly feature allows you to delete more than one item at a time in the z/OS Job Window. In combination with the enhancement to delete item references, this significantly simplifies revisions to your jobs.

Job and File Comments

You can now maintain your own comments regarding any job or input file. You could use this feature to explain what your rules are doing, where your inputs come from, what should be done in an out of balance situation, or even to log changes to the job or file. This information will be loaded with your rules in the next release of Infogix Insight.

Find in ACR/Workbench Input Source Window

You can now easily search an input source for the value you wish to use, making mark and capture much easier.

Range Display for Online Restore in z/OS

You can speed up restores by choosing a range of jobs to include in the display from which you select jobs for restore. This eliminates the need to read the entire file. When specifying the range, you can use a generic terminator (*) at the end of a string of characters to include definitions of the selected type whose names begin with the string.

Build Batch for Jobs and Associated Files

With this feature, you can create both your job definitions and their associated file definitions at the same time by selecting the new option, Job and Associated Files. This option also appears in the list definitions options, so you can list the related input source files along with the jobs. This enhancement streamlines the process of moving jobs to production.

Assess the Impact of the 4.x Upgrade Utility Before Performing the Upgrade in z/OS

In response to suggestions from those who have upgraded to Release 4.x, we enhanced our JCL conversion utility ACRJCL40 in two major ways:

• To verify that the ACRJCL40 utility will not inadvertently change non-ACR DDNames that are the same as those used in ACR/Summary and ACR/Detail, you can now set a Report Only flag so that the utility just generates reports on what will be changed without making the changes. The reports include the existing summary of changes and a new report that shows a detailed before-and-after listing of the potential changes to DDNames and DCB information that will be made.
• To automate changes for customers who use program interface or DB2, you can now set a Change All flag so that the ACRJCL40 utility changes all JCL DDs that need revisions (except IDCAMS changes, which must always be made manually). Before using the Change All flag, be sure to run the utility in Report Only mode to verify that you are impacting only ACR JCL.

Item Values and Descriptions in Messages

Messages will now be much more useful because they now 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 referenced in the message 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.

Select Items from a List when Creating a User Report on z/OS

When creating a user report, you can now select from a list of all available items. Both item numbers and descriptions are displayed, making it easier to find the item you want.

System-level (4000 level) Return Codes Can Be Passed to Infogix Insight

4000 level return codes are generated by ACR/Summary or ACR/Detail when there is an issue such as the rules not existing in the definition database. Now you can optionally have these values sent to Infogix Insight, so if you check results of ACR jobs only via Infogix Insight, you will be able to see these basic errors.

Extraction Variables in Freeform SQL

Extraction variables, already available in non-relational database extraction, can now also be used in the Where clause when you perform freeform SQL RDBMS extraction. This will make it much easier to extract data based on values in another input source, such as for specific dates.

Model Checking in z/OS No Longer Requires APF Authorization

Based on your feedback, we incorporated a new IBM routine that obtains the model number without APF authorization. APF authorization is now required only in ACR/Summary spool monitor mode, which always required it.

Support for Newer Windows Systems and 64-Bit Machines

You can now install ACR/Summary and ACR/Detail Server, ACR/Workbench or Client on two more platforms, Windows 7 and Windows 2008. In addition, ACR/Workbench or Server can be installed on 64-bit systems (Windows 2003, 2008, or Windows 7).

Support for Linux

ACR/Summary and ACR/Detail are now available for 64-bit Red Hat 5.3 Linux systems. The installation guide for UNIX and the user guides for Windows and UNIX have been renamed and updated to reflect support for Linux.