Job Control Language (JCL) & TSO/ISPF

Course objectives
The students will first learn MVS-OS/390-z/OS JCL on a theoretical basis.
After that the students will learn how to use TSO (Time Sharing Option) and ISPF (Interactive System Productivity Facility) efficiently by putting their theoretical JCL knowledge into practice through the execution of a series of exercices.
By performing these exercises the students will learn to make use of program utilities, procedures, GDGs (generation data groups), "classic" and "new" conditional JCL, etc., and how to debug JCL.

Audience
- All

Prerequisites
- You need a basic knowledge of OS/390 and/or z/OS (cf our introduction course).

Class infrastructure
- The students must have access to an OS/390 or z/OS system and logon under TSO

Course contents

JCL principles

Structure

Syntax rules

Dataset organization

VSAM (Virtual Storage Access Method) and non-VSAM data sets

Catalog structure

Generation Data Group (GDG)

Program utilities

IEFBR14, IEBGENER, IEBCOPY, DFSORT, ...

JCL streams

JOB JCLs, PROCedures, and INCLUDE groups

Special features

Use of symbolic variables

Procedure modification techniques

Classic and new conditional JCL

TSO

Using the terminal

TSO commands

ISPF

Data set creation

ISPF editor

Data set utilities

SDSF (System Display and Search Facility)

Writing proper JCL

JCL problem solving

Types of JCL errors

ABENDs (abnormal ends)

Interpreting JCL output and the job log

JCL debugging