IBM BPM, V8.0.1, All platforms > Authoring services in Integration Designer > Services and service-related functions > Access external services with adapters > Configure and using adapters > IBM Resource Adapters > CICS ECI resource adapter

Create a CICS import

The process of creating a CICS import from configuring the adapter to developing and generating the service is shown in this section.

Prerequisite: You should have access to a CICS server and COBOL program. In this example, a module already existed though you could alternately create the module in the final page of this wizard.

Use the external service wizard, you will follow the steps you would need to create a CICS import; that is, an import with an EIS binding intended to be used with a CICS RAR file.

Procedure

1. Right-click the module and from the menu select New > External Service. (Alternately, you could begin by opening the assembly editor and dragging a CICS outbound icon on to the canvas.) The External Service window opens. Select Adapters > CICS from the available types and click Next.

2. The Select an Adapter page opens. Select ECIResourceAdapter with the RAR file version you want to use and click Next. The Adapter Import page opens with a connector project name, which you can change. The RAR file has already been discovered and is listed along with the runtime environment. Click Next.

3. The Service Configuration Properties page opens. You can use a predefined JNDI name or specify the connection properties to the CICS server at this time. Click Next.

4. The Operations page opens where you will define the operations for the import. Click Add to define an operation. In the Add Operation wizard, specify an operation name, an input type and, optionally, an output type. An input type can be an available one or a new one. In our case, we selected New. This opens the External Data Discovery window to the Business Object Mapping Details page.

   The different types of mappings available are listed as follows:

   • C to business object
   • C to business object (CICS Channel)
   • COBOL to business object
   • COBOL to business object (CICS Channel)
   • PL/I to business object
   • PL/I to business object (CICS Channel)

   If that each language (C, COBOL or PL/I) has two choices for an input mapping. For an output mapping, there are three choices. The differences in these selections are as follows:

   • A language which will have one output value at run time

   • A language with CICS channel support. Traditionally, CICS programs have used communication areas (COMMAREAs) to exchange data. Channels and containers provide an improved method for transferring data between programs, in amounts that exceed the 32KB limit that applies to COMMAREAs. A container is a named block of data used to pass information between programs (it can be thought of as a named COMMAREA). Any number of containers can be passed between programs through the use of a channel.

   • For an output mapping only, there can be a language with multiple outputs, which means at run time one of the outputs will be selected to return a value.

   In our example, we chose COBOL to Business Object (CICS Channel). Then we clicked New and navigated to a COBOL file.

   Click Next.

5. The Select Data Structures page opens. Platform and code page are already completed for you, but you can change them. The platform and properties specified here must be those of the target platform where the CICS transaction is running (z/OS , Windows, and so on). The defaults shown are taken from the preferences set for the COBOL importer in the preferences page. To see these preferences, from the menu select Window > Preferences > Importer > COBOL.

   Clicking Advanced reveals other fields you can change such as the floating-point format. Click Find beside the Data structures pane. The wizard returns the data structures in the COBOL file. Select the one you want. Click Finish.

6. You are returned to the Business Object Mapping Details page. Our selection was in the Containers pane as we had selected CICS channel support. Click Next.

7. The Generate Business Objects page opens. You can choose to change or create a new module at this point. The name of the generated business object will be the data structure name if you do not change it. Specifying a folder is recommended since otherwise all generated files will be in the root module folder, which will make them difficult to manage. Generation style, which in this case you will see if you select the container name, lets you choose several options that can shorten the length of the generated file names. A CICS channel name and container name must be specified. Click Finish to complete the generation of your business objects.

8. The Operation page will let you add an output type at this point or let you choose to use the input type for output. In the case of a CICS channel selection like ours, the input and output must be the same. Click Finish when your operations have been defined.

9. You are about to complete your service. In the Operations page of the External Service wizard, you may add more operations. The function name must be specified. It is the name of the program that will be run on the CICS server.

   You may also specify a maximum length for the commarea. Clicking Advanced provides other properties for you to override such as the timeout value. Click Next.

10. The Generate Service page opens. You are at the point where you are about to generate your service. You can add a folder to contain the generated files. You must enter a service name. If you want to have the RAR file deployed with the module, you can select a check box to do so. However, the preferred deployment method is to configure one instance on the application server. Click Finish.

11. Your service is generated and added to the module. If you see a message asking if you want to overwrite changes, click Yes.