Zowe CLI Plug-In for Output Management Solution CA View- Use Case Creation
{Ecosystem} This is a continuation of my first blog on my journey discovering the power of the Open Mainframe Project’s Zowe “Titan” CLI Plug-in. This is part of the Journey Discovering CA View Plug-in for Zowe CLI. Along the way I’ve been re-imagining how it can be leveraged outside the DevOps world to bring that power to the business user or business automation workflow world.
Just a reminder, CA View is a report management solution that resides on the mainframe. It is where all mainframe user reports, JCL and Systems logs are stored, life-cycle managed, and secured for online viewing. It allows hundreds or even thousands of users to log into the repository to view reports online either via 3270 or web interface. Also, in case you do not know, Zowe CLI is an open source project comprised of a number of components that allow DevOps teams to easily interact with z/OS mainframe software.
After I did my research, I explained to my manager that I was done reviewing the CA View Plug-in for Zowe CLI and I understood the concept of how it works. I advised him from a CA View perspective, we do not have a traditional “DevOps” position. However, when we looked at the features of the Zowe CLI Plug-in and understand how our clients utilize CA View, we believe we have to look at the CA View Plug-in for Zowe CLI from the business user perspective. It might be a good idea to expand our product messaging around the Zowe CLI Plug-in beyond a DevOps tool to include its value as a business workflow process tool, or a “Solution” bridge to enhance business automation leveraging CA View and its Web interface.
I also advised my manager, we are going to have to come up with a good business story and develop real use case examples to share with our clients on “Why” they need to really consider Zowe CLI Plug-in as part of a CA View business automation process. My manager laughed and assured me that my team will come up with a great story around Zowe CLI Plug-in and CA View. This is the Story of Zowe CLI Plug-in featuring CA View.
As I stated in my previous blog when we began socializing CA View Plug-in Zowe CLI to our current and future clients, they were not impressed or excited about the capabilities from a CA View point of view.
So, after a number of socializing sessions with our clients, we realized we need real business use case examples to demonstrate the power of Zowe CLI Plug-in can provide. We learned we cannot just talk about the Command Line Interface calling API’s, we need something that our clients can visualize in order to see the vast business possibilities when leveraging Zowe CLI Plug-in outside of the normal application program development process. We finally understood that we are mostly talking to a vast array of business developers, business analysts, accounting, and other business users who are using CA View to run their business. They do not care about a Command Line Interface, they just want their report data in the most efficient way to get their work done.
We also realized a need for some type of business script or “wrapper code” around Zowe CLI Plug-in in order to execute a business process. I am not familiar with coding in Python, VB, or Windows scripting, so, I recruited a colleague who is familiar with writing scripts in Windows and Python. The CA View Plug-in Zowe CLI creation team is set. My role in this process is that of the CA View Business User.
Developing a Tasty Zowe Use Case Dish to Consume featuring CA View
First things first, I had to convince my script-writing colleague to join me on this discovery adventure. I will call him Stefan. I explained to Stefan that his help was being solicited to determine the difficulty of writing wrapper code around the Zowe CLI Plug-in in an effort to build a business process. I learned that we can interact with CA View using the Zowe Plug-in, however, a business process is required to consume, analyze, distribute, read, and send the data securely. Developing a conceptual CA View use case, it would be necessary to look at Zowe CLI Plug-in from outside of a normal DevOps perspective. We need to look at our approach from a business development perspective, it needs to be something quick to develop, easy to maintain, quick to change, and simple to manage. The focus, from a CA View point of view, should highlight how to streamline report repetitive business processes or workflow automation processes. Also, it will be key to keep in mind how the business user interacts with CA View to run their day to day business. We need to re-imagine a new way of using Zowe CLI Plug-in that is “tasty” to our clients. A new flavor that our clients will find so “desirable or tempting” they will want to consume and experience the possibilities. “Stefan asked, why are you describing this concept project like a food item?”
My response to Stefan was simple, first, looking at the different user roles using CA View. It is the business users who are, for the most part, interacting with CA View. Clients currently using CA View have already figured out ways to do business workflow automation outside of CA View. Our mission is to make our re-imagined Zowe CLI Plug-in to be “tasty” enough for those legacy clients to say “I want a taste of that” and are willing to convert their homegrown business workflow process and begin leveraging the out of the box features of the CA View Plug-in for Zowe CLI.
Second, as for the “desire” part, we will have new CA View clients that want certain features for their unique business automation requirement that CA View may not offer “out of the box”. If we can demonstrate to them how it is done using the Zowe CLI Plug-in and show how malleable this tool is with regard to integrating into CA View. Also, those new clients will have the “desire” to say “I want a taste of that” feature or function because it provides value to my users. So yes, I am describing something that will bring value to our clients and make the clients want to “consume” how Zowe CLI Plug-in can enhance and improve their business processes. I also added, If we do this right, the client can begin developing their own Zowe CLI Plug-in business processes and further re-imagine how to extend this tool into the business environment to perform additional business automation tasks.
Stefan’s acknowledged I had made him both tempted and hungry. “Then he asked me what I thought he should develop using the Plug-in?”
There was some role play, as I mentioned, I played the business user and Stefan was the developer collecting business requirements. The intention was to keep our Zowe CLI Plug-in thought process very simple and with a business process focus. If creating a wrapper code for the Zowe CLI Plug-in turned out to be simple, we could begin creating user stories with the product manager. If it is difficult, we would go in a different direction to determine what is needed to be successful in developing wrapper code. To start, I requested, a report list of the batch jobs stored on CA View that ran on a certain day with condition code higher than zero. I went about my day to day business not thinking about my request to Stefan for several days. Then Stefan called me and told me to check my inbox.
I could not believe it, there it was, an email from Zowe with a list of batch jobs with condition code higher than zero stored inside CA View in my inbox. But wait! Stefan even had the CA View Zowe Plug-in script send me the CA View Web link to each batch job enabling me to launch the web interface giving access to each job listing inside of CA View. This was amazing to see and the wheels of my mind began turning. I could finally visualize that we have many, many options available leveraging this tool in a business process, and the Story of Zowe featuring CA View is real.
Is This CA View Plug-in for Zowe CLI Concept Real!!?
I inquired of Stefan how difficult was it to develop this Zowe CLI Plug-in code. He shared that it required only 3 Zowe command lines to get the data. Stefan admitted that he was not well versed in coding in python and that he had spent the majority of time researching and figuring out how to format the data and emailing than actually interacting with CA View Plug-in for Zowe CLI. Once he better understood how to code in python, it was actually pretty easy. He also commented that coding using modern development tools appears to allow the client to support their unique business code themselves. Again, Stefan confirmed my thought process:
1- Zowe CLI Plug-in is simple to use.
2- Client can utilize modern business development tools to support their interaction with Zowe CLI Plug-in to quickly make changes or updates.
3- There is no long-running development cycle to build new business functions or features leveraging Zowe CLI Plug-in.
4- Integrating CA View into a new business workflow process or creating a business automation process using Zowe CLI Plug-in is pretty simple.
Our team began looking into our CA View backlog of enhancement requests. We found many examples of clients requesting very specific user enhancements. We selected a number of them for our CA View Plug-in for Zowe CLI development. We began developing user stories and associated the request to the user role.
Now that it is clear what is being requested in our CA View enhancement backlog requests, it is determined most of these unique business process requests can be fulfilled using the Zowe CLI Plug-in. The next best step is to build a few examples that will demonstrate for the client how to use CA View Plug-in for Zowe CLI to build their own business workflow process.
Use Case Example showing Zowe CLI Plug-in Featuring CA View
Here is a use case example (below) of how we visually showed our clients leveraging Zowe CLI plug-in featuring CA View.
We were able to trigger a Zowe CLI script in a Windows batch process to extract the data from CA View, format the data into a spreadsheet (above) using python, and finally, store the spreadsheet to a share drive for the business user to review. All the business user has to do is access the shared drive folder and open the MS Excel document for review and to begin further processing if needed.
Once we showed our clients how this one example process was able to save this user 2 hours out of the user busy day and show cost savings streamlining this one business automation process, the responses below from our clients have dramatically changed. This is because we showed visually several real sample use cases and a perspective on why it is advantageous to leverage Zowe CLI Plug-in as part of the business workflow process.
Imagine Multiple Zowe CLI Plug-in’s Solutions Working Together
Another example, imagine that you are a developer on call, watching your son or daughter playing in a soccer game at the park. A critical batch job abends and you get notified on your phone from a Zowe CLI Plug-in enabled Workload Automation solution like CA-7 or CA Automic (AAI) via a helpdesk ticket that was automatically created leveraging the data from the Zowe CLI plug-in. The batch job information and a web link from CA View showing all the information about the batch job after you securely log into the web app. You will be able to see the problem with the job and can call into the production control support team to advise them on how to fix the job, while at the soccer game. This is because Zowe CLI Plug-in enabled business process provided critical information directly to your cell phone. This is the power of the “Titan” Zowe CLI Plug-in, it can help make critical business automation more efficient.
Finally, there are other automation solutions that can do a similar function as the example above. However, you have to learn how to code within these tools, like REXX for example, you have to be familiar with that tool. This is where it is different with Zowe CLI Plug-in, you just have to call the Zowe CLI enabled application using simple or complex development tools and begin automating your business process.
My journey discovering Zowe CLI Plug-in is over. However, my knowledge journey of the solution is just beginning. Once I understood how it can be used by a product like CA View, I can now see an interesting future with Zowe CLI Plug-in. I see where this tool can expand and enhance other Zowe CLI enabled solutions that are outside of DevOps infrastructure. I can see where this tool can be used to re-imagine client business workflow processes to make them more modern, streamline, and efficient. Zowe CLI Plug-in solution is easy to develop, deploy, and even future-proof because they leverage modern-day business application development solution tools. It just takes a little imagination and a little planning to see the value of what is possible leveraging Zowe CLI enabled solutions.
“If you enjoyed this blog checkout more Zowe blogs here. Or, ask a question and join the conversation on the Open Mainframe Project Slack Channel #Zowe-dev, #Zowe-user or #Zowe-onboarding. If this is your first time using the OMP slack channel register here.”
