Users' guide

My installed software

One of the most powerful features of Shopz is that it can tailor your software orders based on what software you currently have installed. For example, knowing what products are already installed helps Shopz determine if you already have the requisites for new products that you want to order. Knowing what service is installed on your system helps Shopz include just the requisites you need in your service orders, thus keeping the order's size to a minimum. To use this feature you must upload your installed software reports to Shopz, but for most types of orders they are optional.

Your reports are stored in our database, so you don't need to upload them every time you use Shopz, but you should upload new reports whenever you've made changes to your system.


Creating reports

There are three types of reports that Shopz uses:

  • z/OS installed software reports list the software products and fixes installed on your z/OS systems, so the same report can be used to tailor both product and service orders. They are used to automatically configure ServerPac orders, and tailor your view of z/OS product catalogs, product orders and product requisites. They are also used to exclude service which you already have installed, thus reducing the size of your service orders, and to identify which products and features are available to be serviced. They are created with the SMP/E GIMXSID command, which requires SMP/E release 3.2 or later. These reports must be downloaded to your workstation as binary data.
  • z/VM service reports list the fixes installed for the products on your z/VM systems. They are used to exclude service which you already have installed, thus reducing the size of your service orders. They are also used to identify which products and features are available to be serviced. To create the report, log on to the maintenance user ID MAINTvrm, if it exists. If it does not exist, log on to MAINT. Enter the VMFBTMAP ALL command. This will create a file called VMPFXALL BITMAP on the system inventory disk (default is 51D) that is accessed as file mode D. You may rename the file, if you wish, to some other name, for example, something associated with your VM release, the system where you generated the report, or the date you generated the report. Download the report to your workstation as binary data.
  • z/VSE installed software reports list the products and fixes installed for the products on your z/VSE systems. They are used to exclude service which you already have installed, thus reducing the size of your service orders. These reports must be downloaded to your workstation as binary data.


Downloading reports to your workstation

Once you have created your reports, you must make them available to your workstation before you can upload them to Shopz. There are many ways to transfer files from your host to a workstation. Several are shown below. The important thing to remember is to select the appropriate transfer type (binary) for the reports you are downloading.


Downloading reports with Personal Communications 3270

  • Select the Transfer pulldown menu.
  • Verify that you have the correct system type selected (e.g. MVS/TSO).
  • Select the Receive File from Host... choice.
  • Type the host file name in the edit box titled Host File.
  • Place the cursor in the PC File edit box and type in the name you want to call the file on your workstation (you can use the navigation controls to browse the file system on your workstation and choose where to download the file to).
  • Select a transfer type (binary).
  • Press the Receive button to download the file to your workstation.

Downloading reports with TCP/IP FTP

  • On your workstation, open a command window (e.g. a DOS Window).
  • Create a directory on your computer into which you will download the report:
    mkdir shop
  • Change your current directory to the one you just created:
    cd shop
  • Establish an TCP/IP FTP connection with your host system.
    ftp hostname
  • When prompted, enter your user ID and password.
  • To set the transfer mode to binary:
    binary
  • Download the report (sample shown is for an MVS dataset):
    get dataset report.file
  • Close the FTP connection
    bye

Using a network drive to store reports

If you are able to map a directory in your host z/OS Unix file system as a network drive on your workstation (using Network File System (NFS) or a similar technology), uncomment the last step in the sample jobs used to create the software reports to copy the report into this directory. You may then point right to this directory in the upload step within Shopz, without having to download the report to your workstation.


Uploading reports to Shopz

You can upload new or updated reports or delete old ones from the My installed software page, or, if you prefer, you can just upload the reports as you need them during the software ordering process.


Scheduled report creation

You should consider setting up a scheduled task on your host so that your software reports are generated automatically at desired intervals. An up-to-date software report will then always be available to be uploaded directly to Shopz.


Sharing reports

When you upload reports to Shopz they are associated with your own user ID. If you would like to share your reports with other Shopz users in your company, you can establish a common repository for the reports within your own environment. Then each user can find the reports there when they are ready to upload them to Shopz. This works particularly well with scheduled report creation.


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