Well the long and the short of it is from an end user standpoint it depends. Why is that? Because the AS/400 is just a platform, just like Windows is a platform. The actual business software runs on top the platform. Does that make sense? The way you enter in data and work with the programs will be different from software package to software package that runs on the AS/400.

So ultimately there is not one good answer on how to learn the AS/400.

However there are almost always commonalities in screen layout design that all users should be familiar with. For instance F3 exits a screen whilst F5 refreshes or updates a screen. If you need help with a specific field or screen then F1 usually brings up the help info. And so on.

Learn the “F” keys and learn them well.

The plus (+) key on the numeric keypad is generally mapped as a field exit key which slides your numbers over to the right in a field. This is handy when entering in numeric data.

Now this is an overly simplistic view of how things work on the AS400, but at least its a starting point for most total beginners. But there really is no good answer to learning an AS/400 from an end user perspective because you will need to learn the software that is being used. Hopefully the place you get hired at will at least train you on the software and it’s nuances.

Now there are some things that are good for you to know and can certainly give you a leg up or make you a power user. Like Operations Navigator, iSeries Navigator or i Navigator. Whatever IBM decides on renaming it does not matter, its what it can do for you that matters.

For instance almost every user would like to download spool files (aka reports) to there PC so they can send them electronically, email or import the data into another program like MS Excel. This is an area where i Navigator shines, you can simply track down your spool files within Navigator and then literally drag and drop it on your desktop where it is then instantly converted to a format compatible with your workstation. Pretty simple stuff that can save you hours of work.

There is alot more to be said for Navigator and I am just barely scratching the surface but most of the other tools built into it are for system administration and configuration tasks, not for end users unless you have someone that is really a power user or sophisticated enough not to screw something up. Fortunately when installing Navigator you can pick and choose which modules a user will have installed and can access.

End users should be familiar with the printing systems and how to control printable output in the form of spool files. Everything that is printable is called a spool file. Spool files spool in output queues which are then prints the document on a physical printer. So you should become familiar with the Work With Spooled Files command WRKSPLF.

WRKSPLF will show you all of your current spool files or the spool files of another user, where they are and what the status is. If you need to know why that report you just created isn’t printing this should be your first stop. There could be a message waiting.

If a printer has a bunch of documents printing on it you can use WRKSPLF to move the spooled file to another printer that may be idle.

Another frequently asked question is where the heck is that job I just submitted? So users should familiarize themselves with the Work With Submitted Jobs command WRKSBMJOB.

WRKSBMJOB displays all of the jobs you have submitted and where they are currently residing. Most importantly there is the “— status—” column that displays the current status of that job. This is important because if the job is waiting for it’s turn to actually run it the WRKSBMJOB display will show that it is waiting in the job queue so you know that it hasn’t run yet.

If the job shows the status of ”ACTIVE” then it is still processing and hasn’t finished running yet.

If the job shows a status of “OUTQ” then it has finished running and the spool file is waiting on an output queue so you can go and print it.

See how easy that is? To make your life even easier the WRKSBMJOB screen allows you to take an option to look at a message that may be waiting on the job or to go directly to the spooled files it created so you can release them or move to another outq.

Check it out here:
http://www.midrangejumpstart.com/

-John Andersen

AS400 Programming Development Manager Menu

Let’s first take a look at Work With Libraries function of PDM. At a basic level this option allows you to reivew and change libraries on your system, sort of like the Work With Libraries (WRKLIB) command but using a little bit better (depending on your preference) interface with some different capabilities.

 

PDM Work With Libraries

By taking option 12 for work with from the Work With Libraries screen takes you into the second PDM option we will cover which is Work With Objects. Once again in work with objects you have all the familiar options to change, copy, delete, rename objects and so on. So similiar options is a recurring theme throughout the utility.

PDM Work With Objects

A nice feature built right into the PDM tool in the work objects screen is the ability to Position to a file name or object type which comes in really handy when you have to wade through libraries with hundreds and even thousands of objects. I am really only touching the surface of what can be done with the PDM utility.

Like the name implies it really is a tool to make programmers jobs easier.

PDM User Defined Options

For instance Programming Development Manager comes with the ability to create user definable options. These options are essentially shortcut keys you enter on the option line to perform some sort of action. Many of the more popular commands are pre-programmed options for you, for example Work With Spool Files (command WRKSPLF) is setup as option SP. So if you simply enter SP on the option line it calls up your spooled files.

The option WA calls the Work With Active Jobs (WRKACTJOB) command. Another handy option that has been pre-configured is the Call command which has been defined as option C. In this instance the option for Call is setup to pass parameters to the command for you. So if you are working with source members and wanted to call a program you just compiled (or any program for that matter) simply put the cursor in the option field next the source file you compiled, enter ‘C’ in that option field and then press the enter key and that exact program will be called.

I use the C option in PDM quite frequently when compiling and testing out programs that don’t require additional user entered parameters to be passed. Another technique to get around this is to create a small “wrapper” CL or CLLE program to pass the parameters for you.

PDM Work With

You can also setup your own PDM defined options by pressing the F6 key on the Work With User-defined Options screen and following the prompts. Lastly PDM makes working with any kind of source member easy by calling up the Source Entry Utility (also known as SEU) by using option 2.

Understanding how to enter DDS specifications into a source file and compile them into physical and logical files is really as far as you need to go for 90% of the tasks involved in running a 400. Yes, nowadays you see alot about using DDL (essentially SQL) to create tables but I am still a fan of DDS and do create views using SQL statements when it makes sense to do so.

Recently I have been working on a tier three ERP system from one of those conglomerated software consolidation companies. Chances are you have heard of them if you have been around ERP systems in the last few years. 

The one thing I really hate about this system (which uses a mainstream database on the backend running on a Win32 platform) is how clunky the report writing process is. It’s not elegent, and it’s not tightly integrated into the system itself. In short I think it sucks.

This is precisely an area where the AS/400, iSeries and System i shines. You have so many native tools and applications to work with the underlying database. You have tools like Query/400, Query Manager, direct SQL and so much more that simply plugs right in and goes. You don’t have to learn a bunch of complicated syntax to use programs like Query/400 either because its entirely menu driven.

Many people these days are frowning on “green-screen” based programs.

My take is always to use the right tool for the job and sometimes that is a query report or interactive lookup screen using runqry or query definition. The command line and perhaps a small CL program allows this to be transparent to the user, so who cares if the resulting data is displayed on an old fashioned green-screen.

So to get started writing reports check out the following short list of commands/programs:

WRKQRY
STRQMQRY
RUNQRY
Operations Navigator (allows you to execute and thoroughly examine SQL statements)

One area that used to be lacking on the AS400 was report manipulation or report mining tools. People used to print out thousands of pages of reports (and many still do) just to pull out a couple pages with the pertinent details and then throw the rest away.

But nowadays there are so many third party tools that will take your spool files and convert them into plain text for your PCs. Even Operations Navigator has had this capability for many years. It even allows you to search through files and outqs. End users can even do this with a little bit of training on Operations Navigator, it’s not that difficult and they will love you for it.

There really aren’t many excuses for getting the most out of your systems today. We aren’t living in the stone age where data extraction and reporting writing for the AS/400 is complicated thanks to the myraid of tools that have been available for many years now.

There is a large misconception running about the user community these days that the AS/400 and iSeries platform are old antiquated machine as scarce as the dinosaurs and just as hard to use with its crummy looking text only interface commonly known as the green screen.

This is a major sticking point for business looking to buy an AS/400 and especially for some system administrators that have been groomed on a Windows based environment with point and click ease of use and a built in wizard to do just about everything.

But there is really good news for those people who absolutely hate the old fashioned green-screens that the AS/400 and iSeries platform is known for… there has been a tool available to make maintenance and administration tasks easier. That cool graphical user interface tool is called Operations Navigator, it comes along with your regular licenses so it doesn’t cost any additional money and it has been available now for many years.

That’s right I said that the operations navigator utility is a GUI you can use with your AS/400 and iSeries systems. With it you can maintain users, catalogue system patches and program temporary fixes, watch jobs, administer printer output queues and more.

You want to run an SQL query to delete some data sets or run a quick and dirty report and export the results into Excel? Operations navigator has you covered. Want to copy files from your computer over to the integrated file system on the AS/400? Operations navigator can do that too.

If you are into keeping a watchful eye on the health and performance data of your system, once configured, operations navigator will spit out great looking charts and graphs of important performance metrics.

Did you know that you can also download your reports as text or pdf files from your AS/400 or iSeries with operations navigator, this very feature alone can replace you dependency for expensive third party software packages you may currently be using.

One of the greatest features not otherwise available until operations navigator came around is the ability to diagnose SQL statements and present them in a graphical diagram with each of the steps the system used to execute it in very thorough detail.

There is also a whole feature set available that will collect performance data on your programs and files and record how often temporary indexes are built, you then simply go back and review this data after running a collection and it will recommend indexes to build that will improve the performance of your reports and queries dramatically.

Eventually you may find yourself having to perform some tasks in the command line environment, but as time moves on more and more of features are being built natively into operations navigator with each new release slowly removing the dependency on the green-screen. Who knows though, you may even become a convert like some of us old 400 folks and start to use the command line interface instead of the GUI.

Nonetheless oprations navigator has such a rich set of tools and its ease of use make it an excellent tool to administering your AS/400 and iSeries systems so it is definitely here to stay.

The operating system that runs on an AS/400, iSeries, i5 is known as OS/400 or i5/OS and it is command and menu driven. At its heart everything tends to be a command and even the menus that you see use commands behind the scenes. All of these commands are known as control language

 AS400 commands tend to be three letter abbreviations of two or more words put together. For example the word “work” is commonly used in several commands and is abbreviated as wrk. Printable output on an AS/400 is known as spool files and commands to work with those are abreviated as splf— ok so thats four letters but it is a rare exception.

So if we put together Work and Spool Files we ge the command “wrksplf” Work with Spool Files and it allows you to maintain your printable output that is still residing on the system. And by the way commands are entered on the command line at the bottom of menus and denoted with the “===>” symbol.

 To see a list of AS400 commands that have been catagorized into groups type in “go verb” on the command line. As you will see there are *alot* of commands. Ultimately you will probably only ever use 20% of them, and realistically even for day to day system administration less than that.

You can also prompt any command by typing it in and pressing the F4 key on the keyboard. This prompting will display more detail about the command and provide all of the available parameters that go along with it.

Everything that runs on the AS400 is called a job. And all of the jobs run within their own areas known as subsystems. To see a list of all the jobs currently running on the system you will use the command wrkactjob which stands for Work with Active Jobs.

Without getting into a bunch of techno jargon, subsystems are a way to run jobs that jobs can be allocated system resources like memory and CPU processing time. For example printers run in there very own subsystem called QSPL, which tends to have its own pool of memory allocated to it. That way others jobs in the system don’t use that allocated memory and vice versa. The memory can be reallocated easily if need be but that will be covered in another topic.

Out of the box an AS400 will have adequate subsystems configured to get you up and going… as time goes on your can create more subsystems or change the pre-configured ones if need be.

Lastly let’s take a look at how to shutdown or restart an AS400. Starting up an AS400 or restarting is know as an Initial Program Load or IPL for short. This is a rather straight forward process but can take quite a bit of time to complete.

In a very brief nutshell upon startup the system checks everything out and loads up the operating system and related systems to make the system opertational. During an IPL is most often when you will experience a hardware failure… not to worry though because most hardware failures that occur on an AS400 can be replaced while the machine is running. This includes hard disks, redundant power supplies and even memory.

So to shutdown or IPL a system you will use the Power menu which you access by typing in “go power” on the command line or alternatively using the Power Down System or pwrdwnsys command. Most people opt for using pwrdwnsys.

Sometimes when people transfer data from an AS/400 to Excel or another program they run into a some data that looks a bit like guacamole, this tends to happen when transferring numerical data.

Without getting into a lot of boring technical details “packed data fields” are the default standard for storing numerical data on AS/400s in a format known as EBCDIC. PC based computers use ASCII and so they don’t always translate across when transferred in there native formats.

The problem is when you bring that data over to the PC world it doesn’t always translate correctly to ASCII… now this only tends to occur when using the data transfer program built into Client Access and not when using an ODBC connection or other program which does the data translation for you behind the scenes.

The symptom is that when you download the data you will see letters in fields where there should be numbers from 0 through 9. To correct you simply translate these letters or characters over to the corresponding number as follows:

0 = ‘}’
1 = ‘J’
2 = ‘K’
3 = ‘L’
4 = ‘M’
5 = ‘N’
6 = ‘O’
7 = ‘P’
8 = ‘Q’
9 = ‘R’

Now thats about as easy as duck soup… but it sure can be a pain. Ultimately to “cure” this issue you will want to get at the data another way and not use the AS/400 Data Transfer portion of Client Access for this specific table, instead use ODBC and SQL query, import it as part of a printable report, etc.

Everyone wants to get there data into Excel or spreadsheet of choice to slice dice and do whatever else you need to in a user friendly, powerful program tailor made for data manipulation and reporting.

Getting data from your AS/400 to Excel used to be a major pain but now its simple and routine process depending on what your reporting needs are. Simply replicating a table or pulling in a printed report can be done but if you need more complex functions or selecting slices of data from a large table you will want to get some third party software which will make this process easy.

Without the use of expensive third party software there are essentially two ways to pull data from an AS/400 over into your Excel spreadsheets.

The first method utilizes the data connection wizard built into Excel and an ODBC driver to query the database tables. Yes, Excel has a feature built right into it for querying databases (not just your AS/400) and storing the resulting data sets in your spreadsheets!

The AS/400 and iSeries ODBC driver comes with Client Access and is available as an option when you install Client Access on your PC. Alternatively there are some other vendors out there that sell ODBC or OLE drivers for connecting to your AS/400.

Utilizing the AS/400 ODBC driver you then use the Excel Data Wizard to open a connection to your system and pull down data. Alternatively you can use an Access database and create linked tables (again utilizing the ODBC driver) and then query and report against them.

After using Excels data connection wizard (as shown above) you simply just import the AS/400 data into your desired spreadsheet page using the data import option which will then connect to your AS/400 ODBC data connection and pull down the data tables.

The default for this type of connection is to download the _entire_ database table… unless you want this there are some additional options you can use to add query constraints to pare down the data selection.

The second method is to take an existing spool file report, download it as a text file using iSeries Navigator and then importing it right into Excel. Excel handles this perfectly except you have to add in the column breaks and then cleanup the page headings.

When using the Excel Text Import wizard to import AS/400 data contained in spool files make sure you select fixed width and not delimited field data. The alignment of the columns may take a little adjusting.