News & Events – tcACCESS User Symposium 2003

The User Symposium 2003 was held at the Hotel Schreiberhof at Aschheim on March 20th and 21st, 2003. It was the third Symposium that was being conducted by B.O.S. and the tcACCESS customers. The highlights of both days have been user presentations and the presentation of Version 6 of tcACCESS.

Siegfried Graf ,"Seeberufsgenossenschaft Hamburg" (VM, VSE/ESA), presented his applications that have been developed using tcACCESS. The main area of use at Seeberufsgenossenschaft is the replacement of the legacy, host-based text processing software by Microsoft WORD. The preparation of the address information and text templates is being performed by in-house developed CICS-COBOL programs. The end user departments are now using WORD VBA-macros that use tcACCESS to directly call the COBOL programs. Mr. Graf pointed out, that all of these COBOL-programs are being used by tcACCESS without any modifications because they are being processed as Stored Procedures by tcACESS. Another area of use is ad-hoc reports of the VSAM based production files. The end users use tcACCESS to access these files with SQL syntax.

Gerard Favre, "Zentraler Informatikdienst (ZID) of Canton Basel-Landschaft" (VM,VSE/ESA), presented "From File-transfer to Online System connectivity". ZID is using tcACCESS for more than 8 years. Mr. Favre presented two of the many projects that have been developed with tcACCESS. The projects are "COVELA" and "FABER/FAK". COVELA is a project in the area of tax assessment. The project is in production since 1997. tcACCESS role in this project is the automatic link between the finance- and tax-data stored in the VSE-system and the data that is being stored in Microsoft SQL-Server databases remotely at the local tax authorities. tcACCESS is responsible for the nightly automated exchange of the data on both platforms. "FABER/FAK" is a new project and deals with the introduction of a new driving license based on a credit card format and following EU norms. The central data concerning the driving licenses are stored at the "Bundesamt für Informatik und Telekommunikation (BIT)" at Bern using OS/390 and ADABAS. The local authorities that issue the driving license are requested to transmit the personal data, the photo and the signature to BIT in real-time. tcACCESS plays a central strategic role in this process. The 20 years old COBOL-CICS-applications use tcACCESS to start the scanner process of the photo and the signature and the printing process of the driving license on 2 alternating NT-systems. The data will be transferred to BIT and the communication from BIT back to the COBOL program again is tcACCESS responsibility.

 

FABER / FAK

 

 

COVELA

 

Dieter Böß, "Versorgungsanstalt des Bundes und der Länder (VBL)" Karlsruhe (OS/390), presented the integration of a modern text processing system (Microsoft WORD) into a 3270-oriented workflow. The main reason for using tcACCESS was the replacement of the host-based text processing system. The new system had to meet all the proven criteria of the legacy system: The print data that is being created on the host in the 3800 format had to be automatically transferred into a WORD-document. The final WORD document had to be stored and archived on the mainframe in an AFP-format. The entire application must follow the principle of process-disruption and –restart and multi-eyes check. The project is based upon the tcACCESS Listener. The host application (NATURAL/ADABAS) creates the 3800 data-stream and starts WORD using the tcACCESS-Listener. The data-stream will be converted into the RTF-format and passed to WORD. If the document is completed it will be converted into the AFP-format and tcACCESS transfers it back to the mainframe. From the end users point of view the integration of both worlds is totally transparent.

 

 

 

The company that manages both Milan airports is SEA (OS/390). Josef Oberacher of B.O.S. Italy presented the SEA applications. All apron related activities like position of the aircrafts, the utilization of the gates, the current situation of the shuttle-services, cleaning and fueling of the aircrafts and luggage movements are stored on VSAM files. SEA has replaced their 3270 applications by a new browser based application that can be accessed from any PC at the airports that is connected to the intranet. All information relevant to the individual teams can be viewed with this application. A detailed description about SEA's use of tcACCESS can be found in the User Story section at "You take off, we take care".

 

 

The attendees of the have been excited about the features and functions of Version 6. All B.O.S. people involved in the development of Version 6 were engaged in the presentations. During the conference the users came up with suggestions for future enhancements. Heinrich von Parseval, Manager Development and Support of B.O.S. assured the audience that these suggestions would be included in his "To Do"-book.

After the official conference hours the users and the employees of B.O.S. had dinner together. It was a great chance to exchange ideas and also getting to know each other.
The users stated, that in the future this kind of conference would be an excellent platform to talk about their individual use of tcACCESS and to express their ideas to B.O.S. for future enhancements to the product. For B.O.S. the conference was a confirmation, that tcACCESS is the ultimate solution for integrating Mainframe data sources and -applications into Open System- and WEB-applications. B.O.S. learned how users use the product, listened to user requirements and discussed ideas for future enhancements.

 

Pictures of the User Symposium 2003

 

The next User Conference is planned for Spring 2004.

         

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