Take Control of your job logs:

A job log is invaluable in determining the cause of a problem when a job ends abnormally. If not properly managed, though, job logs can eat up huge amounts of system storage. Understanding how job logs get generated is the first step to understanding how to managing them.
A record of requests submitted to the system by a job, the messages related to the requests, and the actions performed by the system on the job. The job log is maintained by the system program.
Every job that runs on your server has an associated job log that records its activities. A job log can contain the following:
• The commands in the job
• The commands in a control language (CL) program
• All messages associated with that job
What determines when a job log will be created?
There are several ways within OS/400 to specify the creation of or restrict the creation of a job log.
The message logging parameters on the job description and for an active job determine what kind of information will be collected:
Message logging: LOG
Level . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Severity . . . . . . . . . . . 00
Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . *NOLIST
Log CL program commands . . . . LOGCLPGM *NO
I won't go into all the specifics related to those values at this time, but if the message logging 'TEXT' parameter is set to *NOLIST, a job log will be created only if the job ends abnormally. If the job completes normally, no job log will be created. This is the same whether the job is an interactive or batch job.
If any value other than *NOLIST is specified for the message logging 'TEXT' parameter in a batch job, a job log will always be produced -- whether the job ends normally or abnormally.
This works differently for interactive jobs, though. To conserve disk space consumed by job logs, the SIGNOFF command may be defined as
Sign Off (SIGNOFF)

Type choices, press Enter.

Job log . . . . . . . . . . . . LOG *NOLIST
Drop line . . . . . . . . . . . DROP *DEVD
End connection . . . . . . . . . ENDCNN *NO

So, by default, when an interactive job is ended normally, no job log will be produced as specified by the LOG(*NOLIST) parameter. However, if an interactive job ends abnormally, a job log will be produced.
This job log is usually stored in the QEZJOBLOG output queue in library QUSRSYS. You can determine where your job log output goes with this command:
DSPFD FILE(QPJOBLOG)
Scroll down to the Spooling Description section of the Display File Description listing to see which output queue job log output will be directed to:
Spooling Description
Spooled output queue . . . . . . . . . . . : OUTQ QEZJOBLOG
Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : QUSRSYS
If you want to always force the creation of a job log from an interactive job, you can do it in one of two ways:
1. When you sign off enter SIGNOFF LOG(*LIST) instead of using the default.
2. Prior to signing off enter DSPJOBLOG OUTPUT(*PRINT).
When one of those options is used, a job log will always be created from an interactive job.
Now that you understand how job logs are created on the iSeries, let's look at how to view one?
To view a job log that has already been created, use one of the following commands:
DSPSPLF FILE(QPJOBLOG) JOB(job_number/Usrid/Job_name)

DSPJOB JOB(job_number/Usrid/Job_name) OPTION(*SPLF)
To see ALL job log output on the system, use this command:
WRKOUTQ OUTQ(QUSRSYS/QEZJOBLOG)
For further information on how to create/display or modify job descriptions, review the HELP text associated with the following OS/400 commands:
CHGJOBD
CRTJOBD
DSPJOBD
WRKJOBD
For further information on how to view/change a jobs message logging attributes and to display a job log, review the HELP text associated with these OS/400 commands:
DSPJOB
CHGJOB
DSPJOBLOG

View Description of an Active User:

Have you ever wanted to see the description of an active user on the system instead of just seeing his or her user profile?
Try this:
Go Managesys
Option 12
F11
3 User descriptions
This will show you all active users, in username order, with their names shown beside them.
If you want to send a break message to them, press F10 and this will send a message to all active users.

Gap Analysis:

In business and economics, gap analysis is a business resource assessment tool enabling a company to compare its actual performance with its potential performance. At its core are two questions:

Where are we?
Where do we want to be?

If a company or organization is under-utilizing resources it currently owns or is forgoing investment in capital or technology then it may be producing or performing at a level below its potential. This concept is similar to the base case of being below one's production possibilities frontier.

This goal of the gap analysis is to identify the gap between the optimized allocation and integration of the inputs and the current level of allocation. This helps provide the company with insight into areas that have room for improvement. The gap analysis process involves determining, documenting and approving the variance between business requirements and current capabilities.

Gap analysis naturally flows from benchmarking and other assessments. Once the general expectation of performance in the industry is understood it is possible to compare that expectation with the level of performance at which the company currently functions. This comparison becomes the gap analysis. Such analysis can be performed at the strategic or operational level of an organization.

Note that 'GAP analysis' has also been used as a means for classification of how well a product or solution meets a targeted need or set of requirements. In this case, 'GAP' can be used as a ranking of 'Good', 'Average' or 'Poor'.

FISH:

FISH (First In, Still Here) is an accounting buzzword that describes when companies still have inventory on hand that is not being sold due to inattention or obsolescence. While not an official type of accounting treatment, the term is named after the LIFO and FIFO accounting methods.

Companies in a state of FISH accounting tend to have turnover rates that are lower than the industry average. Investors tend to avoid investing in companies that are in a "FISH-like" state, because having inventory lying about consumes expensive capital and storage space.

Showing fields in SQL:

When using SQL to view data interactively, it can be maddening to window to the right (F20) to find the field you want to see.
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to show all fields, but have certain fields show up in the left-most columns so you don't have to window to the right to find them?
Here's how it can be done:
1. Normal way of showing all fields with SQL:
SELECT * FROM Filename
This will show all fields in the order they occur in the file.
2. Select field1, field2, filename.*
This shows field1 in the first column, field2 in the second column, and all fields will be shown (including field1 and field2 again, wherever they occur) beginning in the third column.

Design of Experiments:

A Design of Experiment (DOE) is a structured, organized method for determining the relationship between factors affecting a process and the output of that process.
Design of experiments is the design of all information-gathering exercises where variation is present, whether under the full control of the experimenter or not. Often the experimenter is interested in the effect of some process or intervention on some objects, which may be people. Design of experiments is thus a discipline that has very broad application across all the natural and social sciences. It is also called experimental design at a slight risk of ambiguity (it concerns designing experiments, not experimenting in design).
Early examples of Experimental Design
In 1747, while serving as surgeon on HM Bark Salisbury, James Lind, the ship's surgeon, carried out a controlled experiment to discover a cure for scurvy.
Lind selected 12 men from the ship, all suffering from scurvy, and divided them into six pairs, giving each group different additions to their basic diet for a period of two weeks. The treatments were all remedies that had been proposed at one time or another. They were
• A quart of cider per day
• Twenty five gutts of elixir vitriol three times a day upon an empty stomach,
• Half a pint of seawater every day
• A mixture of garlic, mustard and horseradish, in a lump the size of a nutmeg
• Two spoonfuls of vinegar three times a day
• Two oranges and one lemon every day.
The men who had been given citrus fruits recovered dramatically within a week. One of them returned to duty after 6 days and the other became nurse to the rest. The others experienced some improvement, but nothing was comparable to the citrus fruits, which were proved to be substantially superior to the other treatments.
In this study his subjects' cases "were as similar as I could have them", that is he provided strict entry requirements to reduce extraneous variation. The men were paired, which provided replication.
From a modern perspective, the main thing that is missing is randomized allocation of subjects to treatments.

Know all Fields and Tables on your iSeries:

If you need to search one field or one file, follow this code on SQL:
Select * from Syscolumns
or
Select * from Systables
This way you can see the dictionary catalog on your iSeries.