A CICS® Application project defines an application bundle. An application bundle is a type of management bundle that describes a CICS application, including the application name, description, and version. The application bundle references the CICS bundles that contain the application resources, dependencies, and any CICS policies relating to the application.
You can reference one or many CICS bundles in an application bundle. By packaging your application in this way, you can deploy an application and its bundles as a single entity to CICS, making it easier to update and manage the application in CICS.
CICS bundle projects must have an ID and a version number to be included in an application bundle. CICS bundle projects that were created for releases before CICS Transaction Server Version 5 Release 1 did not have an ID and a version number. If you want to include these CICS bundle projects, use the bundle manifest editor in the CICS Explorer® to add an ID and version number to the projects.
A CICS bundle can be installed in CICS regions by only one application or platform. You cannot include the same CICS bundle in other applications that are installed in the same CICS regions in the platform, and you cannot add it to the platform. If your application requires a resource that is in a CICS bundle that has been installed in the target region type in the platform, create a new CICS bundle project. Declare the resource as a dependency for the new CICS bundle, by specifying an import in the manifest file. Then include the new CICS bundle project in your application project. For instructions to declare a resource as a dependency, see Defining bundle dependencies.
The information contained in a CICS Application project is used when managing multiple versions of an application in the CICS Explorer. When you modify the application, increment the version number in the application descriptor.
To edit the application project, expand the META-INF folder for the application and double-click on the application.xml or bundles.xml file. Use the application editor to change the application properties and add or remove CICS bundles from the application project. For a guide to using the application editor, see The application editor.