Contents:

Introduction

Features

Usage Examples

Ordering Information

Introduction

Just before your system operator leaves for the night, you have her start a 6-hour job needed by the president of the company first thing in the morning. Fifteen minutes after your system operator leaves, the job isn't authorized to a file. Wouldn't it be nice if you could grant authorization to the file and respond to the message from your personal computer at home. . . .

You are debugging a program and your system operator keeps receiving error messages he doesn't know how to handle. The operator isn't getting any of his regular work done because he is spending all of his time determining what caused the error and who to contact about it. Wouldn't it be nice if your system operator didn't have to bother. . . .

It's spring, the rain has been nice, but those thunderstorms have knocked your electricity out again. Now the entire company has to wait while the system is being IPLed after an abnormal termination. Wouldn't it be nice if your system could have powered down normally before your UPS died. . . . . Now all of the above and more is possible, with A. S. Phone Home.

Features

• A. S. Phone Home monitors your IBM AS/400 for messages. Messages received on your system, expected or unexpected, can be handled by A. S. Phone Home.

• Several actions are available when A. S. Phone Home receives a message. These include auto-reply with a predetermined series of replies, notification of a problem over the phone, and command execution.

• Auto-reply allows A. S. Phone Home to give a predetermined reply in response to an inquiry message. A. S. Phone Home keeps track of the number of times it replies to a message. After the number of replies has been exceeded, A. S. Phone Home can take another action or respond with a different reply.

• Notification allows A. S. Phone Home to call a selected number in its list and deliver a tonal message. The call can be made to a telephone or a pager. If A. S. Phone Home does not receive and answer at the first number, it can be told to call additional numbers on the list until it does receive an answer. You specify the number of attempts to try each number and the time to wait between attempts.

• Command execution allows A. S. Phone Home to execute OS/400 commands. This gives almost unlimited flexibility to A. S. Phone Home.

• Messages can be filtered by message ID or message type, job name, user ID, and message data. This allows the response to be tailored for a specific situation.

• Multiple actions can be taken on a given message. Almost any combination of auto-replies, notifications, and commands can be specified for a message.

• Messages in any message queue can be monitored, although QSYSOPR is the message queue usually monitored. A. S. Phone Home can monitor more than one message queue.

• Messages can be echoed to a second message queue, where they can be responded to by the system operator. If the operator does respond to a message, A. S. Phone Home is aware of it and does not respond to the message itself.

• The occurrence of one message can reset the attempts on another message. After the attempts have been reset on a message, any response pending for the message is canceled. A. S. Phone Home continues to monitor for the message until the attempt's limit is reached again.

• A time delay can be specified to indicate how soon to respond to a message after it is received. This allows the operator to answer the echoed message, or another monitored message to reset the attempts on this message.

• Hardware requirements for A. S. Phone Home are the same as IBM's Electronic customer support. If you have Electronic Customer Support (ECS) with IBM no additional hardware is required. A personal computer or an ASCII terminal will allow you to take advantage of the dial up feature of A. S. Phone Home and respond to messages from home. Without a personal computer or ASCII terminal, A. S. Phone Home still notifies you of a problem.

• Password security is provided to prevent unauthorized users' access to your system through A. S. Phone Home.

• Configuration of A. S. Phone Home is simple. The messages to monitor are loaded thorough an online input program. The online program allows you to work with messages while loading the monitor message data. When the response to the message is a command, the prompt screen for the command can be requested to allow the correct parameters for the command to be loaded.

• Some common messages monitored are already configured when you receive A. S. Phone Home. You can start using it immediately.

• A log of the actions taken by A. S. Phone Home is maintained to provide a history.

• A. S. Phone Home is compatible with other REDOC products including System Backup and Recovery.

Usage Examples

• A. S. Phone Home can be used as a job scheduler by monitoring for the completion of a particular job and submitting another job for execution.

• A. S. Phone Home can automatically increment a user work file the first 10 times a "File is Full" message is received, but on the next "File is Full" message, cancel the job. A month end job running unattended overnight that receives the "File is Full" message might not respond with a cancel to the message but would notify you by phone that the month end file was full and allow you to respond.

• A. S. Phone Home can monitor for a terminal that is varied off because too many incorrect passwords were entered on it. After an hour (or however long you prefer), A. S. Phone Home will vary the terminal back on.

• Failed Communication lines can be handled in a similar manner to terminals.

• A. S. Phone Home can monitor for a power Failure and can power down your system before your battery backup dies. If power is restored within a specified amount of time, A. S. Phone Home is smart enough to forget the power down.

Ordering Information

To order A. S. Phone Home, please complete the software license agreement and return it with your check made payable to REDOC, Inc.; 17497 114 Rd.; Hoyt, KS 66440.

If you have additional questions about A. S. Phone Home click here Request more Information.