Support Summary
The Dependencies tool supports three mainframe job scheduler types: Control-M (BMC Software), CA-7 (Broadcom), and TWS/IWS (IBM Tivoli Workload Scheduler). This documentation summarizes the supported features for each scheduler, including file format parsing, task identification, unconditional and conditional task chaining, JCL/program linking, and dependency edge types.
Throughout this documentation, the term "task" refers to a scheduled task defined in the scheduler, to avoid confusion with JCL jobs.
For detailed documentation on each scheduler, see the dedicated pages:
Task Identification
| Feature | Control-M | CA7 | TWS/IWS |
| Task name | JOBNAME attribute | JOB NAME column | JOBN attribute |
| Task sequence number | JOBISN attribute | SCHID | OPNO attribute |
| Unique task name format | ParentId-JOBISN-JOBNAME-file | JOBNAME-SCHID-file | ParentId-JOBN-file |
Task Types
| Feature | Control-M | CA7 | TWS/IWS |
| Batch task (JCL execution) | TASKTYPE="Job" with MEMNAME | JOB NAME column | JOBN attribute |
| Command execution | TASKTYPE="Command" with CMDLINE | Not supported | Not supported |
| Folder / group definition | TASKTYPE="SMART Table" | Not supported | Not supported |
| Placeholder / dummy task | TASKTYPE="Dummy" | Not supported | Sentinel WSID(ON/OFF) |
| Distributed agent task | Not supported | Not supported | JOBREC block |
JCL and Program Linking
| Feature | Control-M | CA7 | TWS/IWS |
| JCL member link | MEMNAME / MEMBER_NAME | JCL MEMBER column | JOBN (implicit) or SCRIPTNAME |
| Program execution link | CMDLINE (CALL PGM syntax) | Not supported | JOBCMD or DOCOMMAND |
| PROC execution link | CMDLINE (CALL PROC syntax) | Not supported | Not supported |
| Variable / parameterization | VARIABLE tag (%%VAR) | Not supported | Not supported |
Unconditional Link (Task-to-Task)
| Feature | Control-M | CA7 | TWS/IWS |
| Chaining mechanism | OUTCOND/INCOND condition matching | TRIGGERED JOBS / TRIGGERED BY sections | PREJOBN / PREOPNO / ADDEP predecessor declarations |
| Forward trigger (task A triggers task B) | OUTCOND SIGN="+" on A, INCOND on B | TRIGGERED JOBS section | PREJOBN or PREOPNO in ADOP/ADDEP |
| Reverse trigger (task B triggered by task A) | Same as forward (OUTCOND/INCOND) | TRIGGERED BY section | ADDEP with PREJOBN or PREOPNO |
schedulerDependencyType property value | "UNCONDITIONAL" | "UNCONDITIONAL" | "UNCONDITIONAL" |
Conditional Link (Task-to-Task)
CA-7 does not support conditional links. Only Control-M and TWS/IWS are covered in this section.
| Feature | Control-M | TWS/IWS |
| Condition mechanism | ON/DO blocks (COMPSTAT return code) | ADCNC / ADCNS blocks |
| Condition based on return code | DOCOND SIGN="+" inside ON block | ADCNS CHECK(RC) with LOGIC operator |
| Condition based on task status | Not applicable | ADCNS CHECK(ST) with LOGIC operator |
| Forced task execution on condition | DOFORCEJOB inside ON block | Not applicable |
| Dependency description format | DOCOND:condition or DOFORCEJOB:job | ADCNS:CHECK:LOGIC:VALUE |
schedulerDependencyType property value | "UNCONDITIONAL" | "UNCONDITIONAL" |
Missing Dependencies
When a forward or reverse trigger references a task that is not found, a missing dependency edge is created. The link points to a missing node with the UNCONDITIONAL schedulerDependencyType value. This applies to all three schedulers. For Control-M only, when a conditional target (DOCOND or DOFORCEJOB) points to a missing node, the edge retains the CONDITIONAL schedulerDependencyType value.
Dependency Edge Types
| Feature | Control-M | CA7 | TWS/IWS |
| Exec Next Scheduled Task | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Exec Prev Scheduled Task | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Exec JCL | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Exec Program | Yes | Not supported | Yes |
| Exec PROC | Yes | Not supported | Not supported |
| Define SCHEDULED_TASK | Yes | Yes | Yes |