Defining application entry points

If your CICS® bundle project is part of a CICS application, you can define one or more application entry points in the bundle manifest. An application entry point identifies a resource that is an access point to an application.

Before you begin

You must have a CICS bundle project in the Project Explorer view.

About this task

You use the Create Application Entry Point wizard in the CICS Explorer to create an application entry point. An application entry point can apply to the whole application or a specific application operation; for example, you can declare application entry points for create, read, update and delete operations. Each application entry point is declared on a resource and names an operation. You can define application entry points only on a subset of CICS resources.

The resource for the application entry point does not have to be defined in the same CICS bundle project as the application entry point. CICS adds the application operation to the specified resource when the application is installed.

When a task that does not have an application context calls a resource that has an application entry point, CICS creates an application context that becomes associated with the task, and with any subsequent programs that it calls and tasks that it starts. The application context identifies the platform, the application, the application version, and the operation. You can use the application context data for the following purposes:
  • Monitoring and measuring how much resource an application or a particular application operation is using across CICS regions and multiple tasks.
  • Applying a policy to tasks that are part of an application, to define threshold conditions to manage the behavior of the tasks.
  • Using the information with the transaction tracking capability in the CICS Explorer® to quickly identify and diagnose application-related problems.

Procedure

  1. Expand the CICS bundle project and META-INF folder.
  2. Open the cics.xml file to view the CICS bundle manifest editor.
  3. Click the Entry Points tab to open the list of application entry points for the bundle.
  4. Click Add to define an application entry point for the application. The Create Application Entry Point wizard opens.
    1. Enter the name of the application operation.
    2. Verify the resource type.
    3. Enter the name of the CICS resource.
  5. Click OK to save the application entry point.

Results

You have created an application entry point for an application. When the application is deployed, the operation name is added to the specified resource, and application context data is produced for tasks that use the resource.