The latest GA release of CA Report Facility introduces a lot of great enhancements aimed at modernizing the CA Report Facility interface and improving the usability and automation capabilities. Along with enhancements of the product itself, the development team significantly improved the process of importing QMF objects into CA Report Facility and developed free basic and advanced training for new CA Report Facility users.
You will find information about the following features in this post:
- Modern report formats
- Modernized interface
- ISPF editor
- Temporary query
- Recently used objects in main menu screen
- Automation capabilities of procedures
- Usability enhancements
- Ability to change SSID from main menu screen
- Wider batch reports
- DD in Run command for extract form
- Confirmation panel for non-query executions
- Form result when query results are empty
- QMF to PRF Conversion process
- CA Report Facility basic and advanced trainings
Modern report formats
Two new report formats have been added to CA Report Facility: HTML and XML. Both formats can be sent from CA Report Facility via email to a specified email address; in the email body with HTML forms, and as an attachment with XML forms. The data from the column form are encapsulated in HTML or XML tags. For XML, the tag names of every column can be customized.
The following video demonstrates both HTML and XML report forms:
Modernized interface
The latest enhancements to the PRF interface have simplified the usage and addressed complaints from the users. The lack of a usable editor or an easy way to run an ad-hoc query were limiting PRF usability for application developers.
Watch the following video to see all the enhancements to PRF interface in action: ISPF editor, Temporary query and Recently used objects.
Procedures enhancements
PRF procedures allow users to issue CA Report Facility commands in a reusable sequence. Procedures are often used to automate the processing of queries and forms. The native PRF commands have limitations and do not offer many options.
PRF procedures have been enhanced, so users can write REXX code within a PRF procedure and execute such a procedure in both batch and online. TSO commands are also supported.
To learn more, see the CA Report Facility online documentation: Link to a documentation
Usability enhancements
The following enhancements to CA Report Facility significantly improve usability in various use cases:
- Confirmation panel for non-query executions
Some non-query SQLs can cause major data changes. As many non-queries are dependent on replaceable parameters, the invalid input of those parms may cause unexpected data changes. For example, instead of deleting one row (which is the expected result), the non-query might delete the entire table. A new option has been added to CA Report Facility, to display a confirmation panel whenever a non-query execution updates n number of rows, where n is the threshold value. - Ability to change SSID from main menu screen
CA Report facility now provides the option to change DB2 subsystems from the PRF main menu. This is very handy, as previously to work with a different subsystem, you had to end the PRF session and restart it on the other subsystem. - Wider batch reports
The maximum width of batch reports was extended from 255 to 32k - Override a dataset definition while executing an extract form
The definition of the dataset into which the extract form is generated is stored with the definition of the extract form. To run the same extract into a different dataset, the extract form
QMF to PRF Conversion process
The process of importing the QMF object into PRF has been updated. PRF now automates the import of most QMF objects. Before importing any object, you can also back-up the whole QMF repository into external datasets and keep logical links between exported objects and the PRF repository.
Contact your CA representative to get more information.
Trainings
Training new users on CA Report Facility is very important. CA Report Facility now offers up-to-date free web-based trainings at basic and advanced levels.
Trainings:
CA Education and Communities Channels on YouTube:
All of the previously described enhancements were driven by our customers, their feedback and needs.
If you think of any CA Report Facility improvements that would be important to you or your company, do not hesitate to create an idea on or leave us a comment.