Administering the Information Center Facility

The Information Center Facility provides panels for six major administrative tasks.

NEWS

Maintaining the news service. As an administrator, you are responsible for adding, modifying, and deleting online news items for Information Center Facility users.

NAMES

Maintaining the master names directory. The names directory contains entries for everyone enrolled in the Information Center Facility and possibly for other people as well. You are responsible for keeping the master directory up-to-date.

ENROLL

Enrolling people through the Information Center Facility. The enrollment service is a simplified way of adding users to TSO/E and identifying them to the Information Center Facility names directory and, if installed, to RACF®. You can also use the enrollment service to create a user catalog alias for the person's TSO/E user ID.

USERTYPE

Maintaining User Type definitions. When enrolling a person through the Information Center Facility, an administrator assigns that person a user type. The user type identifies a class of users, such as administrator or user. Associated with each user type are the parameters the system uses when issuing the TSO/E ACCOUNT ADD, RACF ADDUSER, and VSAM DEFINE ALIAS commands during enrollment processing. You can use Information Center Facility panels to add, modify, delete, or view User Type definitions.

SYSDEF

Setting the system defaults. The Information Center Facility has default definitions for the user ISPF profile, for printer support, and for applications in the Information Center Facility.

User ISPF profile – During enrollment, the system copies the default user profile to create a new ISPF profile for the user being enrolled.

Printer support – The Printer Support definition describes the printers available to your facility and their print characteristics.

Applications – The Application Manager allows you to add, modify, or delete products and services in the Information Center Facility.

COURSES

Maintaining educational services. This task involves maintaining online course information for computer and classroom courses and providing access to courses your installation offers using the Interactive Instructional Presentation System (IIPS) and the Interactive Instructional Authoring System (IIAS).

The Information Center Facility is divided into panels for user tasks and panels for administrator tasks. Each set of tasks starts on a main menu panel that shows a list of options with descriptions and characters for selecting the options. If your installation has not customized the Information Center Facility, your main menu panel for administrator tasks might look something like this:

Figure 1. Main Menu Panel for Administrator Tasks

              TSO/E Information Center Facility Administration
Option ===>

Select one of the following options.  To scroll, press UP or DOWN.

    0 DESCRIBE    - Read a short description of the options on this panel
    1 NEWS        - Maintain System News
    2 NAMES       - Maintain the name/phone directory
    3 ENROLL      - Enroll users in the Information Center Facility
    4 USERTYPE    - Set defaults for user types
    5 SYSDEF      - Set system defaults
    6 ICFUSER     - Use Information Center Facility user services
    7 COURSES     - Maintain education services
    8 PDF         - Use ISPF/PDF services
    9 PROBLEM     - Use problem reporting services
    I INTRO       - Learn to use the Information Center Facility
    T TUTORIAL    - Read detailed descriptions of options on this panel
    X EXIT        - Exit




To view PF key definitions, type KEYS on COMMAND or OPTION line of any panel.

In addition to those options for administrative tasks, your main menu panel probably has options for:

The main menu panel for user tasks, to give you access to services available to users, as well as allow you to check information or options you have added or changed.
The Interactive System Productivity Facility/Program Development Facility, to let you use ISPF/PDF. From this facility, you can invoke the APPC/MVS administration dialog, which gives you access to the functions provided by the APPC/MVS administration utility. See Administering APPC/MVS Information for a brief description of these functions.
The administrator tutorial, to provide you with instructions about performing particular administrative tasks. You can read detailed information about the fields on a particular panel while using that panel by pressing the HELP PF key.
The EXIT option, to take you out of the Information Center Facility and out of ISPF/PDF. When you exit, the system processes any log or list data sets created during your session using the preset (default) information in your profile. To return to the Information Center Facility, wait for the word READY to appear and type ICQICF below it. (ICQICF is the default command; your installation might have changed it.)