DSXchange

I'm running through the chapters of Datastage Designer and am now looking at creating a job sequence.
I can't seem to get past dropping on a job activity stage. When I drop one onto the diagram window it displays a warning triangle. If I try to access its properties nothing is display and when I write click on it the "open job" function is greyed out. I've tried adding on other activity stages and linking them all together but they still all come up with warning triangles and no accessible properties. I do have a couple of server jobs that I want to link in but can't.
Anyone got any ideas where I am going wrong ?

Hi,
dropping a JobActivity on the sequence canvas simply gives the place where you need to select a job from the drop-down box in the job activity properties.
the open job option from right clicking on the stage is for opening the job design assigned to the job activity stage, which in your case is yet to be set, hence not a valid option so it is grayed out.

if you'll drag a job from the repository on te left side of your designer you'll see the option will work since the dropped activity is already asociated with the job draged from the repository view.

I think you might want to go thru the manual again regarding job sequences, it may shed more light on this kind of jobs.

Good Luck,

palmeal wrote:If I try to access its properties nothing is display and when I write click on it the "open job" function is greyed out.

The 'warning triangles' are normal and just mean you haven't 'configured' or added any metadata to the stage yet. I don't understand what 'nothing is displayed' means when you access Properties. The 'Open Job' option will be greyed out until you tell it which job it is supposed to be running.

Are you running XP as your client with Service Pack 2 (SP2) installed? If you are and you haven't loaded the SP2 patch from the eServices website, then that could be the heart of your problem.

Hello palmeal,

the reason that you see the warning triangle when you drop a job stage on the canvas is that you haven't told the stage which job to run. If you go to the "JOB" tab and then use the drop-down box to choose a job that your sequence is going to execute.

Actually,
If you point the mouse on the little triangle it will list the things that are missing in the stage.
after fixing the problems listed it will dissapear.
I like this feature since it allows you to know if your job will compile or not in a quick look over.

IHTH,

Thanks for the replies - if I drag a pre-saved server job onto the sequence editor then I can open the job. I now understand that point. However, if I click on the properties still nothing is displayed - should there be ?

What I also still don't understand is what is the purpose of being able to drop on a job activity stage that shows the triangle and allows no access to the properties. I don't appear to get the drop down box when I click on properties - nothing happens when I try this.

Sounds like the SP2 bug I mentioned... is that possible?

I'm just had all of the available SP2 patches installed but unfortunately this hasn't made any difference.

If I drop a new job sequence or select an existing job onto the diagram editor and then right click to bring up properties no properties are displayed.

Does anyone else get or had this symptom and if so how can I fix it ?

A little bit more information. If I right click and select properties and say try it 3-4 times (nothing comes up as explained) and then select the Edit menu it displays the drop down but the background is jus black. If I then move the cursor within the drop down menu items are then displayed. This is true for all drop downs but only after I have initially right clicked and tried to select properties.

Any problem with your screen design (runtime) happens mostly due to corruption in your client side. Try reinstalling your Client component.

Just to let people know how this has progressed. I reinstalled the client software on two other PC's and still encountered the same problems as before. I finally got a PC built with Service Pack 1 and all its patches installed and the properties on Job Sequence appear as expected.

I guess that I'll have to raise a case with Ascential regarding this. Is there anyone out there running Windows XP with SP2 and not encountering the problems that I am having ?

Are you sure that you've applied the SP2 patch from Ascential? When you say something like this, it doesn't sound like it:

palmeal wrote:I'm just had all of the available SP2 patches installed but unfortunately this hasn't made any difference.

Or:

palmeal wrote:I finally got a PC built with Service Pack 1 and all its patches installed and the properties on Job Sequence appear as expected.

Microsoft has SP2 patches, Ascential has a single SP2 patch for the DataStage client. Semantics, I know, but you shouldn't be having this problem.

Please verify that you've gone to the Ascential eServices website and downloaded / applied the proper SP2 patch for DataStage. If you have and are still having a problem, then we can take it from there. Otherwise, we're just chasing our collective tails.

Thanks Craig - the patches that I've had installed are XP patches for SP1/SP2. I'll get onto my support in the States regarding the Ascential SP patch and let the forum know how things pan out.

Thanks again

Installed the sp2 Ascential patch and this has done the trick. Thanks for the help.