Collecting the documentation for the APAR

As a general rule, the documentation you must submit for an APAR includes all the material you need to carry out problem determination. Some of the documentation is common to all IBM Z Workload Scheduler problems, and some is specific to particular problems.

Make sure the problem you have described can be seen in the documentation you send. If the problem has ambiguous symptoms, you must reveal the sequence of events leading up to the failure. Tracing is valuable in this respect, but you might be able to provide details that the trace cannot give. You are encouraged to annotate your documentation, if your annotation is legible and if it does not cover up vital information. You can highlight data in any hard copy you send, using transparent highlighting markers. You can also write notes in the margins, preferably using a red pen so that the notes are not overlooked.

Note: If you send too little documentation or if it is unreadable, the change team will have to return the APAR marked ‘insufficient documentation’. Therefore, you should prepare your documentation carefully, and send everything that is relevant to the problem.
Here is a list of the documentation you might be asked to submit for an APAR (in this case, documentation also refers to supporting material). However, these are only guidelines; you must find out from your Level 2 representative precisely what documentation you must send for your specific problem.
  • Details of the JCL and messages from the jobs that were run when IBM Z Workload Scheduler was installed.
  • The IBM Z Workload Scheduler files that are involved, from both before and after the error. You must supply the contents of the files, as well as their attributes (such as size and block size), and a list of the catalog entries for the VSAM files.
  • A storage dump of program load modules.
  • A printout of the z/OS® SYSLOG message-log file.
  • A printout of the IBM Z Workload Scheduler message log (EQQMLOG) for each address space.
  • A printout of IBM Z Workload Scheduler diagnostic files for both the dialog user and the address space. The files are defined by ddname EQQDUMP.
  • Information about the route used through the dialog (panel IDs) and the data entered on each panel. A printout of the dialog panels involved with input data is also useful.
  • A listing of the job-tracking logs.
  • ISPF diagnostic material.
  • A description of the IBM Z Workload Scheduler configuration.
  • A description of the IBM Z Workload Scheduler maintenance level— PTFs and APARs applied. System Modification Program/Extended (SMP/E) provides this information.
  • Details about your z/OS® and JES levels.
  • Details of any user modifications.
  • The kind of interface the customer uses (Dynamic Workload Console, PIF).

You can use the IBM Z Workload Scheduler APAR tape function to collect all important IBM Z Workload Scheduler data sets. You might need to modify the JCL that is generated by the APAR tape function so that all event data sets are collected.