What is a Job ID?

A set of Job definitions for a particular invocation of the Balancing Function is identified by an 18 character Job ID. The Job ID consists of:

• Job Name - The 8 character (or less) job name in the JOB statement. If the job name is less than 8 characters long, it is padded on the right with blanks.
• Step Name - The 8 character (or less) step name in the EXEC statement. If the step name is less than 8 characters long, it is padded on the right with blanks.
• Qualifier - A 2 character identifier used for multiple invocations of the ACR/Summary Balancing Function within a job-step. The job-step qualifier is normally set to blanks if the Balancing Function is invoked only once within the job-step.

Qualifiers are optional and typically used in the following scenarios:

• When more than internal, history, calculated, and/or rules are needed than a single job’s limits A single job’s limit is 100 or 999, depending on ACR version.
• When you want to separate business entities and perform separate balancing steps for divisions, departments, companies, etc.
• When you want different output reports from each balancing entity. For example Company 1 wants a User Report, but Company 2 wants a User Report and a Recap Report.
• When you need to extract from the file using different access modes.
• When you need to make many passes through the same file.