Before I move on, one last shot at the 'hanging WTOR' that others have already excoriated. NetView is famous for this so-called communication technique. It may have seemed like a snazzy idea in the 70s, but I don't know of anyone who likes it now. When the NetView task is started, it throws up a WTOR that you reply to in order to issue commands to the task. It essentially stays on the screen forever, although 'stay' is a euphemism for getting reissued anytime it's replied to. If the reply is a valid NetView command, the task tries to execute it. If what's entered is not a real NetView command, you get this:
REPLY INVALID. REPLY WITH VALID NCCF SYSTEM OPERATOR COMMAND This can easily happen if the operator tries to reply to a different WTOR but gets the number wrong. Often this WTOR remains in this state for weeks or months. Until the next IPL. You never know what it didn't like because the bad reply has rolled off immediately. So my final piece of advice. Whatever mechanism you settle on, don't be like NetView. . . J.O.Skip Robinson Southern California Edison Company Electric Dragon Team Paddler SHARE MVS Program Co-Manager 323-715-0595 Mobile 626-543-6132 Office ⇐=== NEW [email protected] -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Charles Mills Sent: Monday, July 1, 2019 1:44 PM To: [email protected] Subject: (External):Re: Best way to alert customer to pending license expiration? THANK YOU ALL for taking the time to provide your input. The management decision is to keep it simple and put out a vanilla WTO that will be distinct and easy to automate. Let me do one e-mail in response to your many, many helpful details: > IMHO the best way is a WTO that is easy to catch in the customer's automation > software. Thank you @Shmuel. I agree that is the approach. > Wouldn't it be nice if there were a multi-ISV convention for format of > expiration alerts? Vendor collaboration on anything license-related alarms the anti-trust lawyers. > Or even for messages requiring human attention? I think one person's "needs human attention" is another person's "ho-hum." > The customer has a responsibility to manage their own system. > The fact that many do not (completely) is not really something you can solve. Agreed. But I still keep trying. :-( There is no software feature that substitutes for management. I keep forgetting that. > I don't know why the sales team can't keep track of what they've sold Neither do I, but I'm a programmer, not a psychologist or a VP of Sales. In my experience they at least DO not, not reliably. > And to be totally crazy maybe the salesperson could actually visit the > customer. That train has largely left the station. That is a HUGE, HUGE cost that would have to be passed on to you-know-who. And customers do not want to take the time to have someone in their offices. I miss the days when -- as the technical, non-sales CEO of my old company -- I could call someone up and say "hey, I'm going to be in Pittsburgh next month, can I take you to lunch?" and they would be delighted. Nowadays they would not pick up the phone. I really miss those days. > From my experience over the past few decades on the customer side > there is no full proof means to inform the customer of an expiring license. Sadly, I fear you are right. > My software emails the customer a notice once a day, I like it, but not going to go there at this time. Will keep that in mind. > You're assuming that the target machine has the technical connectivity to > "call home," > or, that if it doesn't, the operators and managers of the target > machine would agree to such connectivity and configure it. I don't think you > can make those assumptions. Agreed. In spades. > So if I can tell the software - when you hit 30 days, then produce a > message to syslog and set the RC to 08 - but only if this tool is run. I like it. I want to keep this in mind. > The WTO would go to someone to low in the pecking order to make this > worthwhile. Agreed. Charles ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
