Customizing your workload using variable tables

This chapter introduces the concept of variable tables to group global parameters, from now on called variables, to customize your workload.

Starting from IBMIBM® Workload Scheduler version 8.5, what were called global parameters in previous versions, are now called variables. Variable definitions are contained in variable tables. A variable table is an object that groups together multiple variables. Using variable tables you can assign different values to the same variable for use in job and job stream definitions in JCL, log on, prompts dependencies, file dependencies, and recovery prompts. This is particularly useful when a job definition is used as a template for a job that belongs to more than one job stream. For example, you can assign different values to the same variable and reuse the same job definition in different job streams saving therefore time and avoiding errors.

When you define a variable, you assign it to a variable table because the same variable can be defined in different variable tables with different values. Or, a better approach is to create one or more variable tables, specifying a list of variable names and values for each table. While doing this, you can add the same variable name with different values in different tables. When you request a list of variables you get variabletable.variablename pairs to easily identify to which variable table the variable belongs.

REP1_TABLE1.VAR1

You can assign variable tables to run cycles, job streams, and workstations.