Developing with the BTS API

This section provides a detailed description of the BTS application components, and explains how you can use them.

BTS activities and processes
An activity is the BTS unit of execution. It holds the environment for an instance of the BTS equivalent of program execution. A process consists of a collection of one or more activities, and is the biggest entity recognized by BTS.
BTS data-containers
A data-container is a named area of storage, maintained by BTS. Because data-containers are preserved across multiple activations of the activity, they can be used to hold state data or inputs and outputs for the activity. They are recoverable resources, written to disk as necessary, and restored at system restart.
BTS timers
A timer is a BTS object that expires when the system time becomes greater than a specified date and time, or after a specified period has elapsed. You manage timers with TIMER commands; for example, to cause an activity to be activated at a particular time.
BTS events
CICS business transaction services uses BTS events to signal progress in a process. An event informs an activity that an action is required or has completed.
Dealing with BTS errors and response codes
Each time one of your applications issues a CICS command, CICS automatically raises a condition to tell it how the command worked. This condition (which is usually NORMAL) is returned by the CICS EXEC interface in the RESP and RESP2 options of the command.
Example of running parallel BTS activities
Many business transactions include activities that can run in parallel with one another. To illustrate parallel activities, the following example extends the Sale business transaction to support multiple delivery activities.
Interacting with BTS processes and activities
You can use BTS processes and activities to interact with the world outside the BTS environment. A program running outside a process can use BTS to acquire access to an activity in the process.
Compensation in BTS
You can use compensation in business transaction services (BTS) to reverse or modify actions taken by preceding activities or to stop business transactions.
Reusing existing 3270 applications in BTS
You can use BTS support for the 3270 bridge to integrate existing transactions, including more complex ones, into BTS applications. Sample programs show you how the integration works.
Overview of BTS API commands
Use the CICS business transaction services application programming interface (API) commands to work on processes and activities, data-containers, events, and objects.

Parent topic: Developing applications