FOCUS REPORT WRITER

FOCUS is a 4GL report writer developed by Information Builders Inc. The product has been in use at YSU since January 1991. At YSU we have over eighty FOCUS users writing and running reports for most all departments across campus.

Each FOCUS user has a FOCUS account, which gives them the ability to create and run FOCUS reports in the form of batch jobs. Security is established and maintained for each FOCUS user. The security controls what files a user is able to access for reporting.

FOCUS Job

All data files accessed in FOCUS jobs are defined to FOCUS in what is called a Master File Description (MFD). Each file accessed has a description defined for it. This MFD tells FOCUS the files attributes and defines the format of each field contained in the file. The MFD can be viewed through CMS using a command or displayed along with the report when the FOCUS job is run. The MFD will help the FOCUS users determine data field availability and selection for reporting. The MFD’s are updated to reflect changes made to production files. All MFD changes are communicated to FOCUS users via email.

Master File Description

All Model 204 data files used for FOCUS reporting must have a Access File Description created for them. The access files are transparent to the users but are critical for security, record definition system related information. The access files are also updated to reflect production changes.

The FOCUS product can access over seventy different data structures while running on over fifteen different platforms. This means a user can access different data sources using the same basic FOCUS code. For the most part at YSU we write against M204 and VSAM (Advantage) data. The users at YSU primarily write FOCUS jobs in the CMS environment, put a few lines of Job Control Language (JCL) at the top and bottom of the job and submit it for batch processing. The JCL tells the system who is running the job, where to send the output produced and to cancel the job when it has completed running. When the job is finished processing the requested report along with a job log is routed to the users reader. At this point the report and job log can be viewed, printed, saved or deleted. Output data can also be imported into spreadsheets and word processing programs such as Word.

View of reader List

FOCUS Report

FOCUS has been a dependable and stable tool for the past eleven years with over 5000 FOCUS jobs in circulation. FOCUS at YSU is used for everything from ad-hoc reporting to state data reporting. We have over thirty QR FOCUS jobs running on a daily basis in production, helping to support, Materials Management, General Accounting and Institutional Research to name a few departments.