CICS TG Explorer view

The CICS® TG Explorer view displays the CICS Transaction Gateways that are being used, and the CICS server connections associated with the CICS Transaction Gateway.

A connected Gateway daemon is indicated by the Gateway connected icon Gateway connected icon and information about that Gateway daemon and the associated CICS connections are available in the Gateway daemons and CICS connections views. If the Gateway daemon is connected there is also a count of the number of CICS connections that are active and potentially active for that Gateway. For example, (2/3) means that two CICS connections are active out of a possible three CICS connections.
An active CICS connection is indicated by the CICS connection active iconCICS connection active, green and a disconnected CICS connection is indicated by the CICS disconnected icon CICS disconnected, grey. However, CICS connections that use the EXCI protocol are not predefined and are not included in the potentially active number until they are active. To test a CICS connection, right-click the CICS connection name and click Test CICS connection, the results are displayed in the Console view.
The CICS connections are related to the gateway connection and are discovered automatically. The Gateways are grouped logically in the CICS TG Explorer view under the APPLID qualifier, in this example CTG80L1Q. The CICS server connections are displayed under the parent Gateway daemon.

CICS TG Explorer view, showing Gateways and CICS connections with various icons

You can change the way in which gateway daemons are displayed to organize them by APPLID qualifier, list, or custom:

The user defined context menu option

APPLID qualifier

The CICS TG Explorer view shows a tree-view of Gateway daemons with their CICS connections. The high level nodes of the tree match the APPLID qualifiers of the connected Gateway daemons.

List

The CICS TG Explorer view shows a flat list of defined Gateway daemons with their CICS connections.

Custom

You can use the custom view to create connection groups and then assign gateway daemon connections to your custom groups. The first time you change to the custom view the panel is empty.

Right-click the CICS TG Explorer view, and select New > Connection group from the context menu. You can also use CTRL+N to open the new wizard, expand CICS Transaction Gateway and then select "Connection group". A dialog box is displayed, allowing you to specify the name of the new custom group, for example "PRODUCTION". You can use the Connection group field to select where in the custom group hierarchy the new custom group is placed. The first group is always under the root node, signified by the forward slash character. As more groups are defined, you can use the browse button to select the location of the new group.

You can remove a gateway connection from a group in the user defined view by selecting Delete from the context menu.

When one or more groups are defined, you can assign gateway daemon connections to your custom groups. Right-click the CICS TG Explorer view, and select New > Connection link from the context menu (or you can use CTRL-N). You can use the browse button to alter the target custom group, and then select the connections to add below. Multiple connections can be added to the custom group by pressing the SHIFT or CTRL keys while selecting. You can delete a custom group from the CICS TG Explorer view. Select the group name to delete, right-click and select delete from the context menu to remove the custom group from the CICS TG Explorer view.
Important: If you uninstall the CICS TG plug-in all custom group definitions are deleted. You can use the update feature when installing a new version of the CICS TG plug-in to preserve custom group definitions. Alternatively, export all custom group definitions before uninstalling the CICS TG plug-in and import after installing the new CICS TG plug-in.

You can import and export gateway connection groups. See Viewing connections, Importing connections and Exporting connections for more information.

You can refresh, rename and delete connection groups in the CICS TG Explorer view using the context menu:

The context menu in the CICS TG Explorer view showing the refresh, delete, and rename options.

When using the custom view option, you can group gateway connections using folders. You can then import and export these gateway connection folders. See Importing gateway connections and Exporting gateway connections for more information.

To test the Gateway or CICS connections right-click the Gateway or connection name and click Test Gateway connection, or Test CICS connection. The results are displayed in the Console view.
When you select a Gateway or CICS connection the Gateway daemons and CICS connections views are automatically populated.
  • When you select a Gateway qualifier, all the Gateways and CICS connections associated with that Gateway qualifier are displayed in the Gateway daemons and CICS connections views.
  • If you select a Gateway, all the CICS connections associated with that Gateway are displayed in the CICS Connections view.
  • If you select a CICS connection, only information about that connection is displayed in the CICS connections view.
You can select multiple Gateways or CICS connections by holding down the Ctrl key.

You can refresh the status of all Gateways, and single Gateway or multiple Gateways of your choice. To refresh the status of all Gateways click the Refresh status for all connections icon in the toolbar. Each active Gateway is refreshed in turn and inactive Gateways are ignored. To refresh a single Gateway right-click that Gateway and click Refresh status. To refresh multiple Gateways of your choice hold down the Ctrl key and select the Gateways that you want to refresh, right-click and click Refresh status. The Connecting message informs you of the progress of the refresh.

For further information about the CICS Transaction Gateway, see the CICS Transaction Information Center.