Rapid Reporting

Companies are being driven to convert their Easytrieve programs to COBOL to reduce the increase in licence fees. However, in the process, they lose the reporting capability that Easytrieve provided. Another solution is required. MANASYS Jazz is not only the best way to convert Easytrieve to COBOL, but also offers two report-programming options giving more flexibility and control than Easytrieve, retaining its productivity advantages for report programming with all the advantages of COBOL.

The first option is suitable for simple ad-hoc reports. Starting with Jazz data definitions, quickly created from COBOL, SQL, or Easytrieve and edited to give more complete information (see How does MANASYS Work), the Batch Program dialog quickly creates simple report programs from sequential and VSAM files, and SQL tables. Calculations and more detail can easily be added. Comparable to Easytrieve but with more flexibility and fewer lines of code, this is the best option when you just want the data, but don’t particularly care about the report layout. The Initial Demonstration shows this type of program being generated and run.

The second option gives you precise control over the record layout, and the ability to define calculations and other logic to be executed at the beginning and end of control breaks. Again, you start with Jazz data definitions, but now use the Report Designer dialog to create precisely the layout you want. Toggling between the Jazz program and the Report Designer, you can specify logic and layout in any of the report sections, using Jazz editing for calculations, file lookups, and other logic, and the graphic Report Designer to get exactly the layout that you want.

Conversion to COBOL doesn’t mean that you must lose the benefits of quick ad hoc reporting that Easytrieve gave you. You get both of these report-programming options, as well as web service and classical CICS programming, for nothing more than the standard MANASYS Jazz license.

Conclusion

This is the 9th of a 10-part series of articles about MANASYS Jazz. Click below to see previous articles
1. What is MANASYS Jazz?
2. How does MANASYS Work?

3. Convert Easytrieve to COBOL with MANASYS Jazz

4. Mainframe Modernization Issues

5. Web Services: Key to Mainframe Modernization

6. Web Service Clients: 2 clicks generates client-side interfaces for your web services

7. Data Transformation

8. Why COBOL?

See our web page if you want more information about MANASYS Jazz and to see what else it can do. Contact us if you have any questions, or connect with us on LinkedIn. Download a free evaluation copy to try out MANASYS Jazz yourself.