How to...This chapter explains the process of capturing workflows on which to base CICS or IMS screens service interfaces.
As an alternative to building your entire service interface from scratch, you can streamline some of the work by capturing a workflow. A workflow capture stores details of an interactive session with your application via a TN3270 emulator.
A workflow is a record of a session showing screens used, values entered, CICS or IMS transactions invoked, keys pressed, etc. You can use a workflow as a starting point for building a service interface. For service interfaces that traverse a large number of screens, the workflow is the best starting point. However, because a workflow typically does not provide all of the information you need for a complete service you might still need to edit it in the Interface Mapper before you can deploy it.
For CICS, you can also use the Workflow Capture feature to bring screens into the Service Interfaces window. When you do this, Net Express assigns a generated screen name. You might want to add screens in this manner when you do not have BMS source files.
To capture a workflow, you must have the following in place:
The first step to capturing a workflow is to start your application in the emulator and bring up its initial screen. From there, you interact with the application to capture the details you want.
While capturing a workflow, you might want to run through the procedure several times, both successfully and deliberately unsuccessfully, to cover the different paths through the application. This ensures that all possible scenarios are addressed in the workflow and ultimately the service interface generated from it.
When you have completed your workflow capture, it appears in the Service Interfaces window under Workflows. Any screens you accessed during the procedure that do not already match screens listed in your Service Interfaces window are brought in using the following naming convention:
HostScreennnnn
Where nnnn is a sequential number representing when the screen was accessed during the workflow capture procedure. You cannot rename screens.
For a CICS application, you can use the Workflow Capture feature specifically to add host screens to the Service Interfaces window. You should consider this if you do not have access to the original BMS source files for your application.
The workflow entries in the Service Interfaces window expand to show you the sequence in which screens were accessed.
To create a service interface from a workflow, specify the name of the workflow when you create the service interface. The resulting service interface is prepopulated with the information collected during the capture process.
The initial interaction that starts the application is stored as an operation named Start. Each subsequent interaction with a screen is stored as an operation bearing the name of that screen. You can rename the operations to better identify them.
Typically, a service interface based on a workflow cannot be immediately deployed. Before you can deploy it, you should open it in the Interface Mapper to remove extraneous information, define output interface fields, and provide any additional details your service interface requires.
You must define any output interface fields for your service interface yourself. You might also need to change the direction of some interface fields from input to output.
Once you have cleaned up a service interface created from a workflow, you are free to make further improvements as you see fit. You are not limited to the functionality captured initially.
After making all of the appropriate adjustments, you can deploy and run your service interface just as you would a service interface created from scratch.
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