EXEC CICS START
A CICS command that starts another transaction to run separately, now or at a later time, without waiting for it.
Also written START TRANSID, RETRIEVE, interval control, asynchronous transaction
EXEC CICS START TRANSID('PRNT') starts another transaction as a separate task. The program that issued the START does not wait. It carries on, and the new task runs on its own.
START can delay the new task, with INTERVAL for a length of time or TIME for a time of day. It can run the new task at a terminal or with no terminal at all. And it can pass data with the FROM option, which the started task reads with EXEC CICS RETRIEVE.
This is used for work that should not keep the user waiting. A program that takes a payment might START a separate transaction to print a receipt or send a notice, then reply to the user straight away. It is also used for simple scheduling inside CICS, such as a transaction that runs every few minutes by starting itself again.
Because the started task runs separately, it has its own unit of work. If it fails, the original task has already finished, so started tasks need their own error handling and logging.
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- EXEC CICSThe way a program asks CICS to do something, such as read a record, send a screen or call another program.
- CICS taskOne run of a CICS transaction; many tasks for the same transaction can run in a region at the same time.
- Transaction IDA four-character code that tells CICS which program to run, typed on the screen or triggered by a key.
- Transient data queueA CICS queue that is written and read in order, each item read only once, used for logs, printing and starting work in the background.
- CICSThe transaction manager that runs online mainframe applications, and the software behind a great many screens bank staff use.