RAF - Report Archive Facility

To avoid the problem of lost reports.

RAF provides a system for archiving reports produced on an IBM AS/400. These report can be archived online or offline

Before being archived reports are compressed to 10 to 20% of its size to conserve disk space.

There are 3 way to archive reports:

Manually (on request)

When you select manual archiving of a report, you enter the commond WRKSPLR smilar to the OS/400 command WRKSPLF. The display is similar to the display of this command, but it has an additional option that


		           Work with spooled reports

Type options, press Enter.
2=Change  3=Hold   4=Delete   5=Display   6=Release   7=Writer
8=Attributes       9=Work with printing status       11=Archive

    Report		Device or		   Arch- Total Cur
Opt File	User	Queue	   User Data  Sts  ived  Pages  Page  Copy
__  QSYSPRT   JOHNDOE	PRT06	   INV1031    RDY  YES     131        1
11  QSYSPRT   JOHNDOE   PRT06	   INV1032    RDY  YES	    42	      2
__  QSYSPRT   QPGMR	PGMROUTQ       	      RDY  NO       12 	      1
__  QSYSPRT   QPGMR	PGMROUTQ	      RDY  NO       12	      1
11  QSYSPRT   QPGMR     PGMROUTQ	      RDY  NO       12	      1
__  QSYSPRT   QSECOFR	INTERDATA	      RDY  NO        1	      1
__  QPJOBLOG  QSECOFR	INTERDATA  OEISECUR   RDY  NO       22	      1
__  QPJOBLOG  QPGMR	PGMROUTQ   DSP1200    RDY  NO        1	      1
__  QPJOBLOG  QPGMR	PGMROUTQ   DSP12S1    RDY  NO        4	      1
__  QPPGMDM   BUDGET    QPRINT	   RAF.DUMP   RDY  YES      19	      1
__  QPDSPJOB  BUDGET	QPRINT	   RAF.DUMP   RDY  YES       6	      1
__  QPJOBLOG  BUDGET	QPRINT	   RAF.DUMP   RDY  YES       2	      1
								More...
F3=Exit  F4=Prompt  F5=Refresh  F10=View 3   F11=View  2    F12=Cancel
F17=Top  F18=Bottom F22=Printers

( If this table does not display properly, please change the fixed font setting in your browser to 'courier')

allows you to archive a report. One additional column also tells you whether the report has already been archived.

Automatically (auto archiver)

To use this option you must start a batch job that periodically scans output queues and archives printer files that obey a certain number of rules you define for your AS/400 system.

You also define which output queues to scan, where to archive the reports and the disposition of the reports processed.

This is the normal way or archiving. The job is transparent to the user and there will be no change to any CL. No changes are noticed by users. Everything works like before RAF only a certain number of reports you define get archived.

You can find out at any time what is the archiver doing and what it has done so far by displaying its status


Auto archiver status                  Report Archive Facility

Current status . . . . :  Running     Ending scheduled for . : 04\30\97
                                        At . . . . . . . . . : 22:30:00
Run number . . . . . . :  137
Last started                          Last ended:
        Date . . . . . :  04\30\97      Date . . . . . :  ********
        Time . . . . . :  08:43:51      Time . . . . . :
        User . . . . . :  SYSOP         User . . . . . :

Times polled . . . . . :  19
Last poll:                            Next scheduled poll:
        Date . . . . . :  04\30\97    Date . . . . . :  04\30\97
        Time . . . . . :  17:15:03    Time . . . . . :  17:30:00

Eeports archived . . . :  87
Last report archived:
	Date . . . . . :  04\30\97    Spooled file name . . . :  QSPYSPRT
	Time . . . . . :  17:00:09    Print program . . . . . :  OEI2010R

Change status . . . . .   0        0=None 1=Start archiver 2=End archiver
F3=End   F5=Refresh    F12=Cancel

Adding the archiving option to some jobs.

To use this option you have to add two lines to the CL that prints a report. This line will enable RAF to archive the report as soon as produced. You specify where to archive and what to do with the report on the spool.

An example of the changes would be


OVRDBF	FILE(CUSMAST) TOFILE(SALIB\CUSMAST)
OVRDBF	FILE(SALESRP) TOFILE(SALIB\SALESRP)
OVRDBF	FILE(COMISON) TOFILE(GLLIB\COMISON)
OVRDBF	FILE(SA2514R) TOFILE(SALIB\SA2514R)   +
          COPIES(2) HOLD(*YES)
CALL    PGM(SA2514R)  \* Print sales rep commissions +
	     report  *\
ARXSPLR FILE(SA2514P) SPLNBR(*LAST)
RLSSPLF FILE(SA2514P) SPLNBR(*LAST)
 RETURN

The two lines in red are the lines to be added

Display and reprint reports

Reports are archived to physical files with one member per report. You can at any time display any archived report. The report looks on the screen as the output of the DSPSPLF command. As with this command, you can search for a string, go to a given line or page, etc.

You can also reprint an archived report at any time. If you do not change the report parameters the output will be exactly the same as it was printed. However RAF gives you the ability to change the page size, font, no. of lines per page etc. This is a very convenient way to reformat a report already printed.


Work with archived reports         Archive file . . . . . . :*ALL
                                   Position to: Date . . . . _________________
Type options, press Enter.                      Time . . . . _________________

2=Change 4=Delete 5=Display report 8=Display description 10=Reprint

      Report printed            Spool     Printed    Device               Total
Opt   Date    Time    User ID  File name by program or queue  User data  pages
+__ 04\20\97  16:06   QPGMR    OEI1023R  OEI1023R   QPRINT    INVOICE    272
 _5 04\20\97  16:06   QPGMR    OEI1105P  OEI1105R   QPRINT    INVLIST     13
 __ 04\20\97  16:07   JOHNDOE  INV1023P  INV1023R   PRT06     PHYSICINV   26
 _5 04\20\97  16:08   QSECOFR  QSYSPRT              PRT01                  2
 10 04\20\97  16:09   QSECOFR  QSYSPRT              PRT01                 40
 __ 04\20\97  16:11   QPGMR    OEI2020P  OEI2020R   QPRINT    INVMGMT    542
 __ 04\20\97  16:11   SYSOP    SA140P    SA140      SYSOP     SA140P       7
 __ 04\20\97  16:11   SYSOP    SA140P    SA140      SYSOP     SA140P      25
 10 04\20\97  16:12   SYSOP    SA140P    SA140      SYSOP     SA140P      18
 __ 04\20\97  16:13   BUDGET   CM21330P
 __ 04\20\97  16:27   BUDGET   CM21330P
+__ 04\20\97  16:27   SYSOP    SA141P
F3=Exit    F5=Refresh   F14=Display archive
F22=Change sequence

Even if archived reports are heavily compressed, they use up disk space. After a given period of time you may want to copy old archive files to tape, to conserve disk space. RAF can do that and still keep track of where the reports are. If several years down the road you need to reprint a report RAF will tell you exactly which tape to restore and you will be able to reprint it.


                        Work with archive files

Type options, press Enter.                     Position to _______________________

4=Delete  5=Display report index  8=Display description  9=Save  10=Restore

        Archive   File    Report index  File     Last     Saved to Size in  No. of
Opt     file name Status    Status      created  changed  tape nbr megabyt reports
 __     ARXF0000  Offline   Offline     10\12\96 11\12\96 000000       60      839
 _9     ARXF0001  Offline   Online      11\12\96 01\12\97 000000       60      547
 __     ARXF0002  Online    Online      01\12\97 04\20\97              42      764
 _9     Jlog0001  Offline   Offline     10\12\96 11\02\96 000000       60     2145
 __     Jlog0001  Onffine   Online      11\02\96 12\18\97 000001       60     2057
 __     Jlog0002  Online    Online      12\18\96 02\19\97              60     1987
 __     Jlog0003  Online    Online      12\19\96 04\29\97               6      171
 __     SPEC0000  Online    Online      03\20\96 04\26\97               8       57

F3=Exit  F5=Refresh  F17=Top  F18=Bottom

Because RAF/400 only uses system programming it is not dependent of the structure of the spool. Therefore a report archived today will always be reprintable even if the structure of the spool changes as has happened before.

Report Archive Facility is the indispensable tool for a well organized data processing department.

For more information or a free demo with manual:

download RAF (8.6 Mb)

or contact us via the traditional communication channels:

InterData Systems, Inc.
522 Balliol St.
Toronto, On. Canada, M4S 1E3
Phone: 1 (416) 932-8372
Fax: 1 (416) 352-5457
email: mail@interdatasystems.com