Coexistence with automation programs and other CICS releases

If you are using automated-operation programs or multiple CICS® releases, then you must plan for them to coexist with the CICS message-handling facilities.

If your automation system must see the console messages before they are reformatted by CICS, place its subsystem definition in IEFSSNXX before the definition for CICS. But, if your automation system must see the reformatted messages, its definition must come after that of CICS. Consult the documentation of your automation package to determine which applies to you.

If you have defined the message-handling facility has been defined to MVS (by the CICS entry in the IEFSSNaa member of the SYS1.PARMLIB library), CICS regions running earlier releases of CICS in the same MVS image have the full benefit of the message handling that has been defined if either of the following cases is true:
  • An automated-operation program, such as NetView, is active in the MVS image.
  • A CICS region that supports message handling (see The console message-handling facility for a list) is running in the same MVS image.
A consequence of the standard format console messages is that they no longer include date, time, and informational messages or information. If you use this kind of information as a token, you must make a change to the code so that it looks for a different token.