The Sheet view

The Sheet view displays the selected data as a spreadsheet. You can display all or some of the data and you can sort the data in each column by clicking the column name. The columns can be repositioned and resized by left-clicking the edge of the column and dragging to the wanted position. You can select one or more transactions for more detailed analysis, and view the new selection in a new Sheet view.

When you select an APPLID or Transaction ID in the Records view, the selected data is displayed in the Sheet view. You can control this action with the Link to Selection icon The link to selection icon used to control the updating of the Sheet view when you select items in the Records view. By default, Link to Selection is selected so that the Sheet view updates automatically.

The Sheet view is shown in the following screen capture. The view tab shows the source of the data and the number of rows displayed. The information line shows the selection criteria, in this example, the APPLID.

Sheet view containing data from a database

The view tab shows that only 25 lines out of a total of 161 were retrieved. Click Retrieve more to see another 25 lines. The filter tool consists of a text field with Apply filter and Reset filter buttons. Next to the filter tool is the sheet view menu control. You use this control to access the sheet view menu.

Sheet view menu

The Sheet view shows all the data fields in the selected data source, however because of the amount of data, it is not always easy to identify out-of-line situations. By using the sort facility or selecting different APPLIDs or transaction IDs, you can reduce the data selection for further analysis.

When you select a subset, right-click the selection, click Performance history, and select one of the report options to analyze the data further.

The menus in the Sheet view are based on the type of records. If you are looking at a Performance Summary record you can use the Performance History link to access more views on that data. If you are viewing statistical data you can use the Link menus to view records that share certain parameters and attributes, linking statistical records.

Filters

You can reduce the amount of data returned by using the filter tool. You can write the field names and values directly into the field or you can press Ctrl+space to select a field name from a list.

Filter tool
Double-click the field name and then press Ctrl+space again to see a list of operators. Type an appropriate value for that filter and click Apply filter. The sheet view updates with the filtered records. For example, if you type transaction ID != C* the sheet view displays only non CICS® transactions. You can add other fields and values to the filter to further refine the data.
Sheet view with filter applied

Click Reset filter to display all records. You can find more information about tools and filters in Refining the data selection

Sorting data

You can sort the data by clicking a column header. Click once to sort in ascending order and click a second time to sort in descending order. A third click returns the display to the default chronological order.

With the CICS PA plug-in v3.2.1 the sort is now done on the server so that for each new sort request, the full set of data is used. With this feature, you can sort the same data in many different ways without the need to recall the full data set on the local machine. Sorts are now faster, more accurate and more flexible.

For example, you want to see the 10 transactions which had the highest CPU time average. Click the Total CPU time average column header twice to sort the data in descending order. The transactions which use the most CPU are now clearly seen. If you now sort on another column, the query is rerun on the server so that all the data is available before it is sorted on the new column.

You can set the database retrieval parameters to return only 10 rows of data and still sort in many different ways. The data is still accurate because the sort is done on the server with all the data before returning the top 10 rows to the sheet view. For more information about retrieval parameters, see Setting database retrieval parameters.

Saving and reusing layouts

When you have applied filters, chosen which columns to display and sorted the data, you can save the layout and reuse it again. Click the sheet menu icon to open the menu and select Save Layout As.

Save layout dialog

Select Include current filter to save the filter with the layout.

To use a layout, select Apply Layout from the sheet view menu and select the layout. There are some sample layouts already provided.

Apply layout menu

Exporting and importing sheet layouts

You can export your saved layouts in a file to share them with other users or to keep a backup. In the Sheet view, click View Menu > Export layouts.

The View menu of the Sheet view where you can export or import your saved sheet layouts

Enter the location where you want to store the file. The exported file must have a file type of .pref but the name can be anything you choose, for example, layouts.pref. If you save the definition file on a shared disk, users can load the layout details into their CICS Explorer sheet view, by clicking View menu > Import layouts.