One of the most important
features of any resource accounting and chargeback system is
the ability to retrieve information in a timely fashion. If a
Financial Analyst must rely on the programming staff to design
a SAS query or write a program, the value of the information
may be lost by the time the Financial Analyst receives
it.
The KOMAND Data Inquiry
System (DIS) is a full-featured report writer designed for
end-users that have little or no programming expertise. By
using DIS either in batch mode or interactively with the
KOMAND ISPF menu system, it is possible for the user to easily
create reports based on the costed master files, SMF, or any
user defined input files. DIS can also be accessed using a PC
GUI which lays on top of the ISPF menu system.
The entire "query
language" used by DIS consists of twenty-five simple
English-language verbs. Some examples are:
-
WHEN - similar to the COBOL "IF"; it is used to
limit the input data based on user selection
criteria.
-
LIST - list the fields
that follow; DIS will format the output or the user may
supply columnar headings and report
positions
-
SORT - sort on the field(s) specified; sort may be
in ascending or descending order
-
DUMP - used with the "WHEN" verb, to create a
subset of the input data
-
WRITE - DIS supports the creation
of comma delimited files that may be downloaded to a PC for
further ad-hoc reporting. These files may be used by any of
the popular database, word processing or spreadsheet PC
applications.
As a safeguard, DIS is "read-only"
so users are unable to corrupt any input files. As
distributed, DIS is able to read all KOMAND files and the
majority of raw SMF records. Documentation is provided to
allow the end-user to create data dictionaries for reporting
from existing in-house files.
