Mainframe, MVS and zOS Discussion

The question I was is, how many ways can we initiate a CICS Transaction? Can you list them?

My answer:

• 1. Keying in the Transaction-id at the terminal
  2. By coding the transaction id in the EXEC CICS return command
  3. By associating the attention key with the PCT

But interview said that there are more ways of doing it. Can you please suggest a full list of option to know how many ways can we initiate a CICS Transaction?

4. You can code EXEC CICS START in a program
5. You can create an entry in the PLT to start a transaction during CICS startup or shutdown
6. You can associate a transaction with a TDQ trigger
7. You can use one of the batch interfaces (EXCI, FEPI) to invoke a transaction
8. You can connect through APPC and start a transaction from a remote system

There are probably other ways to invoke a CICS transaction but those are the ones off the top of my head.

9. I use IEFBR14 to initiate a transaction

On the grounds that IEFBR14 does not do anything except return with an RC of 0 I guess that what you are doing is actually submitting a job with some statements in it and, thus, it could be any program being executed not just IEFBR14.

Hi Nicc Agreed
Also Initiating transactions this way should be handled carefully as the transactions get intitiated before the rest of the job completes

Hence I would suggest to use these COMMAND in discrete job