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T24 Close of Business (COB)

November 3, 2016 T24 Helper One comment [607 views]

Close of Business (COB) handles the T24 Batch Processing.

Close of Business is used for processing events, calculating and posting interest,
rolling the bank date forward and production of various reports.

The Close of Business triggers various activities based on the scheduled date
and based on specific conditions. The Close of Business consists of the following
five stages in sorted order:

Stage Description of activities

APPLICATION Individual application processes (Forex, Funds Transfer, etc
 System wide processes (Interest and Charges, Revaluation
SYSTEM WIDE etc.)
REPORTING Main system reports (Trial Balance, General Ledgers, etc.)
Change date (Standing Orders, split month end events, cas
START OF DAY flow maintenance, etc.)
Any non critical reports and processes that can be run afte
ON LINE the system has returned to on line mode.

The Close of Business runs various processes based on the order above, in order
of stages and within the stage based on the sequence number.

Each batch stage consists of a number of processes with the same or different
sequence number, which corresponds directly to records in the BATCH file, and
each process consists of a number of jobs for which routines are defined in the
PGM.FILE as type ‘B’. Each batch process defines the stage and sequence at
which it has to be run, the jobs to be run and the frequency in which it has to be
run.

At no point, the stage and the sequence of the batch process will be violated
thus ensuring data integrity and proper processing of jobs if they are dependent
on an earlier job.

Pre-requisites
In order to get the most out of this manual, it is essential that you are familiar
with the standard procedures regarding navigating your way around the system.
This includes items such as program access via menus, data entry and editing,
mandatory and multi‐level fields, committing details, and so forth. All of these
are described in detail in the Navigation manual.
Multiple session Close of Business

T24 Close of Business processes have been designed to run as multi threaded to
reduce the time taken and to maximise the usage of system resources. Multiple
agents can be used to run the Close of Business and they share the job load.

However, this will not affect the sequence or the verification of the Close of
Business. The agents complement each other within the same stage and
sequence and do not violate the agents, thus ensuring data integrity.
The number of agents is defined in the TSA.WORKLOAD PROFILE record, which is
in turn attached to the TSA.SERVICE record on COB.

Close of Business – Set up

A Service Manager (TSM) and Service Agents (COB) control the COB process.
Create TSA.WORKLOAD.PROFILE and TSA.SERVICE records for each of these as
described below:

Step 1 – TSA.WORKLOAD.PROFILE

The Manager only requires one agent (above) whereas 2 to 3 agents for the COB
are sufficient (below)
Step 2 – TSA.PARAMETER

There is only one record – SYSTEM. This application tells the Service Manager at
which levels (in seconds) to review and restart the Agents.

Step 3 – Create a COB User

This is the user name that will be associated with all records processed during
the Close of Business.
The process to create a user is described in the System Administrator
manual and is therefore not repeated here.
Step 4 –

(Create COMMA Version to facilitate starting and stopping Agents without the
need to log in as a second user)
Note: The server name is not a mandatory field. The tSM obtains the server
name it should run, by executing the hostname command. It then tries to match
that with the value entered in the field SERVER.NAME in TSA.SERVICE of
the agent. If it does not match then it could not start the agents. If there is no
value in the field SERVER.NAME, the tSM uses the value captured by it (through
the ‘hostname’ command). So there is no need for the SERVER.NAME field in
TSA.SERVICE. This applies both to local host as well as server.

Note: The server name is not a mandatory field. The tSM obtains the server
name it should run, by executing the hostname command. It then tries to match
that with the value entered in the field SERVER.NAME in TSA.SERVICE of the
agent. If it does not match then it could not start the agents. If there is no value
in the field SERVER.NAME, the tSM uses the value captured by it (through the
‘hostname’ command). So there is no need for the SERVER.NAME field in
TSA.SERVICE. This applies both to local host as well as server.
To invoke Close of Business
As Agents may become stuck, we recommend that you first STOP all Agents,
and then clear the table F.TSA.STATUS at the j prompt as follows:

–> CLEAR.FILE F.TSA.STATUS

Also clear the EB.EOD.ERROR file once the errors occurred during the Close of
Business have been fixed, by entering F.EB.EOD.ERROR at the j-prompts as
follows:

–> CLEAR.FILE F.EB.EOD.ERROR

Start TSA.SERVICE for both TSM and COB records
Initiate Close of Business using tSM and tSA
Step 1 – Start the Service Manager

You have now started the Service Manager.

The Manager continues to advise to manually start the Agents:

Step 2 – Proceed to start the Agents

Open a new Reflection session and enter tSA 2 –DEBUG and the command
prompt:
Agent 2 has been started and the COB is underway, now start Agent 3:
Example of processing screens (with COMO as Agents were started with –DEBUG
statement)
Step 3

When the COB is completed, the Service Manager automatically stops the
Agents – this is the display:
Step 4
Return to the TSA.SERVICE, application and STOP the TSM record. You will note
that the status of COB is already set to STOP.
Start COB with Users Signed On

Non Stop Processing and Close of Business complement each other. Close of
Business disallow input and processing of records in all applications, other than
those supported by Non Stop service.

The applications that are available in Non Stop (NS) service will be available
without any restrictions and will be using the next working date for
processing thus ensuring the concurrent transactions are not picked up for
processing by the Close of Business which is running in parallel.

To support this, Close of Business distinguishes the dates by two different

records per company in the DATES application. Close of Business at the
beginning, cycles the dates record and restores the old dates record with the
key as CO.CODE-COB record in DATES and on line processing happens with
the cycled record in the DATES application.

Even though there is no need for typical T24forMCB sites to make use of the Non
Stop service, the information above is relevant as TT, FT and DC transactions
may be captured while the Close of Business is being processed.

There is also no longer the need to close tills and for users to be logged out of
the system prior to invoking the Close of Business.

Any transactions not permitted during the Close of Business provide a

message to the user stating that it is invalid during Close of Business.
List Files

Every job during the Close of Business uses a LIST file for storing and sharing
records for processing between different agents. The LIST file is dynamically
determined based on the session number doing the SELECT processing of a
multi threaded job. The other agents use the allotted list for sharing their load of
the job. The LIST file is empty at the end of the job thus making it available for a
different job.

COMO

Since the introduction of multi threaded architecture, the COMO is written with
the session number to distinguish processing between different threads.

The COMO is written with the key as TSA_<agent no>_datetime.

It is recommended that all COB COMOs be retained securely for at least six
weeks.

If there is an occasion to restore and rerun, then the COMOs should be printed or
copied to a secure medium before the restore takes place.

Example of the COMO with an error:

Monitoring COB

Three enquiries are available that assist the monitoring the progress of Close of
Business and the records processed with the time taken. They can be accessed
via the Temenos Enterprise Console.

COB.PROGRESS – A listing of active companies and an indication (progress bar)

of their time to completion.

JOB.PROGRESS – This enquiry list all active and completed jobs by descending
start times (i.e. current on top). It shows the start time, end time, elapsed time,
contracts processed, total contracts to process, throughput (contracts/minute)
and individual server rate. The latter is the number of contracts processed in
one minute by a server process – this will be compared historically to see if the
job is slowing down as time passes.

JOB.HISTORY – Drilling down from the JOB.PROGRESS, the user can see a graph
of the elapsed time of the last ten runs of the job and the individual server rate.
If the latter figure rises over time; it indicates a problem, which could be badly
sized files.

Batch Output

All reports, COMOs, etc. produced by the batch system are output using the T24
Report Control system. This enables the operator to determine the destination
printer, user addressing, number of copies, etc.

The following applications are used in this process:

Application Description
SPOOL.BATCH.OUTPUT Prints or reprints all output for a specific batch run.
Specifies that no printing should take place until a
SPF processes have completed.
HOLD.CONTROL Stores detail of all output produced by the batch run.
PRINTER.ID Specifies the printers available to the system.
USER Defining the reports and individual should receive.
In order to access the reports generated during the Close of Business, follow
these steps:

Access

Enter ENQ REPORT.LIST in the Command Line.

Procedure
1. Enter ENQ LIST in the Command Line.
2. Enter the search criteria and click on the Find butto
3. View the resulting enquiry on screen and manipulate as described in
the Navigation manual.
4. Close the report.
Screen

A screen like the one shown below displays, allowing you to filter the records for
on screen enquiry or report.

Selection criteria may include part of a report name, or not entering any
selection criteria, the system displays all reports generated and held as per the
number of days defined in the SPF record.

When the enquiry displays, it will appear like the screen shown below.
Select the report by clicking on the View Report ID against the record displayed
in the report list.
Error Handling
As described in the introduction, a process can consist of any number of jobs,
which in turn can execute a number of programs or operating system
commands. If an error occurs, the system may return immediately to the
monitor screen and display the process and the job in error or in the case of less
sever errors, update the record for the current batch run and the current
company on the EB.EOD.ERROR file and continues.
The details of these errors can be found in examining the records on
the EB.EOD.ERROR file and on the EB.EOD.ERROR.DETAIL file.

The Close of Business processes are wrapped around jBASE transaction

management. Hence, in case of any crashes during Close of Business, the
concerned transaction is rolled back and the Close of Business continues. This
ensures that Close of Business can continue after an error and partial updates
are rolled back to keep the database in sync.

Jobs can abort for a variety of reasons, both system and application related.
Identify the aborted job.

Any system related crashes are sensed by the Temenos Service Manager (TSM)
and the dead agent is started again. The TSM, if there is no activity in an agent
for a period of time as defined in the DEATH.WATCH field of TSA.SERVICE, it
restarts the agent thus ensuring that the Close of Business crashes are
monitored and restarted by the TSM.

Any application related crashes write into EB.EOD.ERROR the information on the
job name, the record and the text of the crash.
The underlying record from the .LIST file is removed and the updates done until
the particular transaction is rolled back.

To continue the batch, use the up arrow key at the j-prompt for the last
command (e.g. tSA 2 –DEBUG) and depress the return key.

There will be some critical jobs that may crash and abort the Close of Business
due to business reasons, as further continuance of the Close of Business is not
advocated. These jobs are defined as .CRITICAL in the ADDITIONAL.INFO field
of PGM.FILE.
Error Message
BATCH NOT COMPLETED YET
EOD HAS BEEN INITIATED
ILLEGAL FREQ FORMAT
ILLEGAL ORDER
INITIALISES ERROR
INVALID ENTRY, TRY AGAIN
JOB ERROR
LINE NO. OUT OF RANGE
NO ENTRY IN PGM.FILE
OPTION INVALID IN ON LINE
PROCESS JOB STATUS IS Xxxxx
PROCESS NAME NOT RECOGNISED
PROCESS NOT IN HOLD OR ERROR
PROCESS NOT IN RUN STATE
PROCESS NOT PRESENT
REC MISSING
RESTORE DB
UNKNOWN JOB IN PGM.FILE
RECOMMENDED FOR YOU
Problem
You cannot return to on line mode until a
batch processes have been completed
successfully.
COB has already been set.
Invalid frequency code specified in proce
The jobs in the process have been
specified in an execution order that is
illegal i.e. job 1 depends on the successf
completion of job 2
Job failed during initialization – no need t
restore the database to re run.
Unknown command at current action lev
Job terminated with an error – see proce
output.
Row selection number does not have an
associated process.
Job not defined in PGM.FILE.
Option from menu cannot be executed
until the Close of Business has been
initiated.
You cannot start this process when anoth
has failed. Re-run the job in error first.
Process name entered is not on
the BATCH file.
Cannot select process to be restarted wh
the current status is not HOLD or ERROR
Cannot select a process to be halted whe
the current status is not RUNNING.
Unknown process name entered from
action line.
Fatal error during process execution – se
process output for more details.
Database needs to be restored to re run
this job
Job not defined in PGM.FILE.
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One comment

 Yoshan

November 16, 2016 at 9:18 pm

Very useful article for the all the T24 Operation guys.

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