The documentation that you submit for an APAR must include all
the material you need to perform problem determination. Some documentation
is common to all CICS® VR problems, and some is specific to particular
types of problems.
Ensure the documentation that you send reflects the problem that you describe.
If the problem has ambiguous symptoms, show the sequence of events that lead
up to the failure. Tracing is valuable here, but you might be able to provide
details that the trace cannot give. Annotate your documentation. Highlight
important data in the documentation you send.
If you send too little documentation, or if it is unreadable, the change
team will return the APAR marked "insufficient documentation". Prepare
your documentation carefully and send everything that is relevant to the problem.
Here is a list of the documentation and supporting material you might be
asked to submit for an APAR. These are guidelines; you must find out from
your Support Center representative precisely which documentation to send for
your specific problem.
- Details of the JCL and messages from the jobs you ran when you installed CICS VR.
- Details of the data sets
used in the failing CICS VR run.
Backup copies, from before and after the error, are required to create the
problem again.
- A listing of the recovery control data set (RCDS).
- A copy of the RCDS.
- Any dumps that were produced.
- The CICS VR reports.
- CICS VR trace
and diagnostic file information.
- A printout of the CICS VR SYSLOG
message-log file.
- Details of any IDCAMS messages from the DWWMSG file.
- Information about the route used through the CICS VR ISPF dialog interface, including panel
IDs, and the data entered on each panel and secondary window.
A printout of the dialog panels and secondary windows
involved, including input data, is also useful.
- ISPF diagnostic material.
- A description of the CICS VR maintenance
level.
- Details about your other software levels.
- Logs used.
- JCL listings (these might be with the dumps, and are not required to be
sent twice).
- Hardware details.
- A list of PTFs and APARs applied. System Modification Program/Extended
(SMP/E) provides this information.
- Details of exits.