BTS timers

A timer is a BTS object that expires when the system time becomes greater than a specified date and time, or after a specified period has elapsed. You can use a timer to, for example, cause an activity to be activated at a particular time.

Note:
A timer that specifies a date and time that has already passed expires immediately. Similarly, if the requested interval is zero, the timer expires immediately.

To define a timer, use the DEFINE TIMER command. When you define a timer, a timer event is automatically associated with it--see Timer events.

To force a timer to expire before its specified time, use the FORCE TIMER command.

To check whether a timer has expired and, if it has, whether it expired normally or following a FORCE TIMER command, use the CHECK TIMER command.

Timer management tips

  1. If a piece of processing (for example, At midnight on 31st December, prepare an annual customer statement) could result in a large number of timers being set to expire at the same time, put the timers in groups and stagger the expiry times. This spreads the load on CICS® and improves performance.
  2. If you shut down CICS at regular times, and know beforehand that at certain times it will be unavailable, try not to set a large number of timers to expire at these times. The timer events all fire when CICS is restarted, which could affect CICS startup performance.

Related concepts
BTS activities and processes
BTS data-containers
BTS events
What are CICS business transaction services?
The Sale example application
Related reference
Event-related commands
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