Hello Endevor afficionados,
(1)
for this discussion, it’s important to bear in mind – as John underlined earlier – that the focus is on a different kind of elementtype:
For program-elements the element could change, even there is no source-change, (by re-gereate, new copybook etc.) For these types I consider it good practice, that the program outputs its version on execution. For that purpose we induce the Endevor-Source-level and /-dates as literal-variables into the program, when the element is generated. When the program writes this literal-variable to SYSOUT, the executed version of the program is documented in the joboutput.
But here we focus on element-types like JCL and all kind of (SYS1.)PARMLIBs, where the source itself is the „active code". For these types you are more dependent from – resp. oriented on - the source-level-information.
(2)
In place of the suggested SMF-reports, I’d like to bring in a simplified, synthetic scenario, to illustrate, where I see the fault. You could easily play this through in reality in your shop:
Let’s say, we have an entry-stage „E" and a production-stage „P" in our environment.
Step a. On 17MAR15 I create a new element in E-stage and move it to P-Stage the same day.
The source-level-information of this element in the P-Stage would look like:
Step b. On 18MAR15 I have to edit the element and create a new source-level in the E-Stage. Due to necessary checks I don’t move it yet to production:
There are now 2 incarnations of the element, one at the E-stage having source-level-information like that:
The other one at p-Stage still has source-level-information:
Step c. On 19MAR15 the checks are ok and I move the element from E- to P-Stage:
The source-level-information at the p-stage then looks like:
Step d. On 20MAR15 I have to edit the element again, but may not yet move it, which results again in two incarnations:
E-Stage:
P-Stage:
Step e. On 21MAR15 I got the ok to move and then I have a final source-level-information of the element in the p-stage:
When you are so far, then please go to an average Endevor-user, let him inquire the element and ask him „When did source-level 0101 of this element become active in the P-stage?"
- If you get the correct answer: Congratulations! Teaching your users you did a great job! (Or did your Endevor-user secretly read misleading SOURCE LEVEL INFORMATION )
- If you get an incorrect answer: Why worry? Endevor is working as designed!
I think, wrong or incomplete=misleading information is worse than no information. Or do you think, that your Endevor-user would immediately ask for a smf-element-activity-report to answer the question?
You might say that inquiries for earlier source levels are not requested frequently! Right! But just for these rare occations it is crucial, to get correct, unambigous information.
As a summary and in other terms:
From a programmers perspective the source-level-information of an element in prodution could be seen as correct, from a production perspective as wrong/incomplete=misleading.
Thank you for going through this discussion. Case 00057472 to get CA’s positioning and/or a solution for better information quality is still open (at this moment).
Now, there are really enough of my 2 ct’s, Have a nice day!
Josef