Current plan

The long-term plan does not contain all the information that IBM Z Workload Scheduler needs to submit work to your system. Before IBM Z Workload Scheduler can schedule work, you must produce a detailed plan, called the current plan. The process of producing the current plan is called daily planning (see Producing the current plan).

The current plan covers a section of the long-term plan. Typically, the current plan covers a period of 24 hours, although it can range from 1 minute to 21 days. IBM Z Workload Scheduler expands the information held in the long-term plan, using the workstation description data and the operation data specified in the application description database. If a current plan already exists, the planning process carries forward any uncompleted occurrences into the new plan.

IBM Z Workload Scheduler creates networks of operations using the dependency information for each operation. Planned start and end times are calculated for each operation. This calculation is based on completion of predecessors, resource availability, and occurrence input arrival time.

When the current plan is created, it is updated in real time by events produced by the SMF and JES exits. User programs can automatically report status of operations by calling an IBM Z Workload Scheduler routine, or TSO users can issue the OPSTAT command. The current plan can also be updated from the IBM Z Workload Scheduler panel. Users with sufficient authority can add, change, complete, or delete operations and occurrences. Work running outside IBM Z Workload Scheduler control can trigger an application occurrence to be included in the current plan. Figure 1 shows the data used in daily planning.