The tutorial introduces the CICS Explorer™ and
outlines the basic functions to help you start using it. You can find
additional information in the Tasks section in this help.
The workbench
The workbench is a single window that consists of views and perspectives.
Defining connection credentials
When CICS Explorer attempts
to establish a system connection it must send your credential details,
that is your user ID and password, to the system for authentication.
When you have defined a credential you can use it on systems that
share the credential without re-entering the details every time. You
must have at least one credential before you can connect to a system.
Configuring a CICS Explorer system connection
Before you can view any information, you must establish
a connection between CICS Explorer and
your CICS® systems by providing
details about the system connection, its location, and authentication
requirements. By default, CICS Explorer attempts to connect
using the SSL protocol. If the SSL connection is not successful, the
connection will be re-attempted without SSL.
Configuring an FTP system connection
You must have an FTP connection to use the views in the
System z perspective. By default, the connection uses the secure forms
of the protocols, FTP over TLS. If the secure connection is not successful,
the connection is reattempted without security.
Perspectives
A perspective is a layout of one or more views in the workbench.
You can decide how you want to lay out the views in the CICS Explorer and save the
layout as a new perspective. CICS Explorer provides two default perspectives:
The CICS SM perspective and the System z perspective. These tasks
describe the perspectives and explain how to work with perspectives
to meet your operational requirements.
Views
A view is a visual component in the workbench. The CICS Explorer displays
resource information in views. You can decide on the size and position
of the views, and what information to show in them. These tasks explain
how to work with the views to meet your operational requirements.
Editors
An editor is a visual component in the Workbench that is
used to edit or browse CICSPlex® SM
or CICS resources or resource
definitions. The editor shares many functions with the other views
but also has some limitations that are identified in the following
topics.
Getting help
Use the online help system to browse, search, and print
system documentation. The help system also provides a context-sensitive
help that gives an overview of the resource with which you are working,
and a text search capability for finding the information you need
by keyword. You can also broaden the search scope to include external
sources of information. The help is displayed either in a Help
view in the workbench, in a separate Help Contents window, or in an
external browser window.