THE SAFARI EXTRACT GENERATOR EXPERIENCE Michelle Fine
Contents
1. 3 14712. A NUMBER BETWEEN 0 5 ERRORON S RETURN END KRKKKK kkkKK kKkKKK kkk IF 5 5 IF 5 IF 5 IF 5 DEPENDING ON WHICH OPTION NUMBER IS SELECTED CALL THE APPROPRIATE PROGRAM OR MENU SCREEN AND REMOVE ERROR HIGHLIGHTING FROM THE OPTION DISPLAY 41 RETURN TERM RETURN THEN DO CALL DISPLAY INITLA ERROROFF INITL MSG 5 RETURN END THEN DO CALL DISPLAY SCANA ERROROFF SCANSEL _MSG t 5 RETURN END t THEN DO CALL DISPLAY EXTRA ERROROFF EXTRC MSG 5 7 RETURN END THEN DO CALL DISPLAY SRTA ERROROFF SORTC MSG FF S T RETURN END THEN DO CALL DISPLAY DETTA MENU ERROROFF DETHDR _MSG 5 RETURN END THEN DO ERROROFF SORTC DETHDR EXTRC SCANSEL INITL CALL PREVIEW CLEAR RETURN END 1470 BUTCEXT PROGRAM CE HH AMAAAANS NAAR ABA 7 2 AUTO 3 ky 7 gt amp q H Uh ae Aa A Y 2 amp SCANSEL_ n 2 REXTRC_ amp S0RTC____ 5 _____ LAST RETURN TO PREVIDUS MENU PRESS WITH THIS SELECTION ENTER YOUR SELECTION 5 i THE HIGHLIGHTED HAVE YET BEEN VIEWED PRESS lt gt TO CONTINUE
3. DEVELOPING USER APPLICATIONS WITH SAS AF SOFTWARE FOR PCS SAFARI EXTRACT GENERATOR EXPERIENCE THE Michelle Fine Aetna Life amp Casualty Abstract In today s changing DP environment greater emphasis is being placed on providing users with tools allowing them to perform functions tradition ally handled in a systems department As a result there is a need for soft ware products that facilitate the development of these end user applications The screen design capabilities of the SAS AF software for PCs along with its error handling facilities and dataset manipulation functions make it a strong candidate for systems of this nature This paper addresses a real life business problem that was solved with SAS AF software for PCs It begins by presenting a background descrip tion of the business environment and the existing problem It then moves on to outline the stages of system development highlighting features of SAS AF that were helpful final portion of the paper provides tips and techniques for using SAS AF and offers recommendations for future development efforts Background The Personal Financial Security Division of Aetna Life and Casualty maintains a large database as part of its SAFARI System by Aetna for Fast Access to Records and Information system Developed in the late 1960 s this file contains all Personal Automobile and Homeowners insurance policy master records a number currently in exces
4. ed the appropriate PROGRAM or MENU screen is called and the ERROROFF statement is used to indicate that the screen variable for that option is no longer in error Thus the highlighting is removed The ERRORON and ERROROFF statements are also helpful for trapping data values that are input incorrectly Screen variables be edited for appropriate values and when an incorrect entry is found the ERRORON statement is used to signal that the field is in error The _MSG_ variable is provided to communicate messages indicating the nature of the error These messages are displayed in the message area of the screen By default SCL programs cannot be exited if any screen fields are in error Therefore the user is required to reenter correct values for the specified fields before processing can continue Once this is accomplished the ERROROFF statement signals that the field is no longer in error and system processing resumes Two additional features of SCL that proved useful are its datset manip ulation functions and its incorpora tion of macro variables SCL provides a series of functions that are used to among other things open close sort retrieve values from and update values to SAS datasets These functions make simultaneously accessing multiple datasets a much easier task than in the base SAS product This can be helpful for processing data located in several different sources for transferring values bet
5. epare code files Application Generator was developed to produce SAFARI extract and dic tionary update files The Appli cation Generator displays a series of menu screens and input panels that prompt the user for necessary information e g extract criteria field names It then uses these parameters to generate the code needed to run the extract and or dictionary update The Application Generator was created on an IBM PC AT using SAS AF version 6 03 This product was chosen due to its reputation for allowing ease and flexibility in screen design as well as for provi ding strong help facility functions A personal computer environment was selected instead of a mainframe environment due to better response times and the superior screen design capabilities offered by the version of the product The system was designed to enable both technical and non technical users to generate extract files with the anticipation that the responsibility for preparing these files would eventually be transferred from the systems depart ment to a customer area Development Experiences I Learning the Language Once SAS AF had been installed the first task in the development process was to learn SCL Screen Control Language the language that con trols the operation of all SAS AF PROGRAM screens Since no formal training courses were available the User s Manual became the primary educational resource For an experienced SAS pro
6. ety of options by entering a corresponding number on the command line These screens have behind the scenes attribute files associated with them which establish relationships between an option number and the path of programs to be followed upon selection of that option PROGRAM screens display informational messages and allow the user to input data values to the system Each PROGRAM screen has an SCL program associated with it that controls validation and processing of the input parameters This type 1467 of structure was very accommodating to the original vision for the system As anticipated the facilities for creating screens were easy to use and allowed a fair amount of flexibility in terms of the format color and size of the screen SAS AF provides a free form full screen editor for use in designing panels Cursor keys are used to maneuver and position various portions of the text The COLOR command is available to diversify the colors used for different aspects of the screen The Background Text Command Line and Message areas among others can be modified from the defaults to a combination of up to twelve different colors In addition the WSHRINK and WGROW commands allow both the width and length of screens to be altered Once into WSHRINK or WGROW mode cursor keys are used to reduce and increase the size of the panel This is helpful in situations where multiple panels need to be simultan eously displa
7. grammer working with SCL required some adjustment since both its structure and compo sition are notably different from those of the base SAS product contrast to base SAS programs which are relatively unstructured and are processed on an interpretive basis SCL programs have a definite struc ture and need to be compiled prior to execution While SCL does use many of the base SAS statements several new statements and dataset manipulation functions unique to SCL have also been included II Developing the Prototype After an initial period of experi mentation with SCL development of the prototype for the Application Generator began SAFARI extract logic can range from a simple value check for a single field to more complex processing of multiple occurrence fields The goal of the prototype was to produce small scale workable system that would have the same basic format as the projected final result but would only address the simpler cases The system could later be expanded to include more involved situations The prototype would also include routines to handle dictionary update code generation and file uploads to the mainframe since these functions are straightforward in nature as well SAS AF proved useful in this effort The product prevides eight types of screens two of which were the most beneficial for the Generator MENU screens and PROGRAM screens MENU screens allow the user to choose any one of a vari
8. s of 4 million records SAFARI policy information is used by different customer areas to follow business trends report on claim activity make underwriting decisions Since this file is the only central source for data of its type extracts are commonly required The SAFARI masterfile is a BDAM file that for purposes of extracting data can only be accessed via a series of Assembler programs A homegrown front end to these programs also exists to aid in the extract process The Assembler front end is composed of two parts An ASI ST dictionary of field names that correspond to several SAFARI masterfile fields and homegrown code used to select and sort records format printed reports and update the ASI ST dictionary Files of homegrown 1466 code containing the desired data Selection criteria are linked up with the Assembler software as well as the SAFARI masterfile to yield the requested subgroups of data Preparation of this code however is a tedious and time consuming process The logic involved can be complex and there are numerous coding details to consider In addition syntax validation is only available for certain portions of the code As a result coding errors are easy to make When extract jobs abend as the result of coding errors they need to be fixed and rerun SAFARI processing time is expensive hence reruns are costly help alleviate this cost and to reduce the time i needed to pr
9. ss time for the system to run One other suggestion is to license the PC SAS FSP product along with SAS AF This package will greatly aid system development by affording a means by which dataset observations can be viewed and interactively updated Given the powerful dataset handling capabilities that SAS AF makes available this is desirable Conclusion SAS AF proved to be a helpful tool in the development of the Application Generator Despite the drawbacks encountered the system was able to be completed and to function effectively in the business environ ment Consensus is that the decision to use SAS AF for this project was a good one Had the scope of the project been less complex develop ment would certainly have been easier However it was still possible for the application to meet all of the originally specified business needs Exhibit INIT INITIALIZE SCREEN VARIABLES kk k HAVE VALUES THAT CORRESPOND TO THE FIVE MAIN FUNCTIONS FOR kkk CODING SAFARI EXTRACTS INITL INITIALIZATION SCANSEL SCAN SELECTION CRITERIA EXTRC EXTRACT CARDS SORTC SORT CARDS DETHDR DETAIL CARDS 1 CONTROL ERROR ERRORON INITL SCANSEL EXTRC SORTC DETHDR _MSG_ 5 RETURN MAIN kkk k CHECK TO BE SURE OPTION NUMBER k ENTERED IS WITHIN THE CORRECT kkk RANGE ERROROFF S IF S lt 0 OR S gt 5 THEN DO _MSG_ SELECTION MUST BE
10. termining the abending program can involve some creative detective work Despite these drawbacks development work on the expanded version of the Application Generator was completed in June 1989 approximately one year after the project had originally begun At this writing the system is in a pilot phase and reaction has been positive Screens continue to be user friendly response times reamin sufficiently fast and the system has improved productivity by promoting increased efficiency and speed in preparing extract files The Application Generator current ly scheduled for installation at the first customer site by year end 1989 Tips and Techniques The most important recommendation for others contemplating projects of this type is to keep applications as simple as possible The less complicated the system the less Likely it will be to require addi tional memory or to exceed the limitations for program size Smaller applications also have faster response times and can be developed more quickly since the SCL programs compile more rapidly In the event that an application does become complex a utility package such as Norton Utilities Speed Disk will help to decrease system processing time Speed Disk will organize the SCL program catalogs and SAS datasets in such a way that accessing them requires only minimal activity on the part of the read write head Therefore it takes less time to access files and le
11. ween screens The Application Generator used this technique to store values entered on all input panel screens so that in the event a screen was redisplayed prior to completion of coding an extract it would reflect values previously entered SCL also provides two macro variable functions SYMPUT and SYMGET that are used to assign and retrieve values to and from user defined Macro variables The Application Generator took advantage of these 1468 functions in addition to those previously mentioned for trans ferring values between screens Creating Expanded Version The SAS AF software for PCs accommodated the Application Gener ator prototype with few difficulties Screens created were user friendly response times were fast and the SCL programs compiled in relatively short periods of time When work began on the expanded version however some of the drawbacks of SAS AF began to surface Discussion of these drawbacks is in no way intended to discourage development of SAS AF systems However these are important facts to consider when planning potential applications The Application Generator prototype was created on an IBM PC AT that had 640K RAM For purposes of the prototype this amount of memory was sufficient As the system grew larger however several memory problems were experienced In order for the system to continue to run it was necessary to purchase memory boards with additional e
12. xpanded memory 1M of memory was needed for the expanded version to run and an additional 5M was also purchased to allow room for future enhancements This delayed system development for six to eight weeks the time needed to receive and install the memory boards Problems were also encountered with several aspects of SCL Programs written in SCL have code size limitations of 32K Since the programs in the prototype were only designed to handle the simpler ex tracts this limit was never reached When the programs were expanded to handle more complex extracts how ever several of them exceeded the size boundaries To solve this the programs were broken down into multiple smaller sections and linked together thru use of the CALL functions In addition compiling and debugging SCL programs presented some difficul ties The smaller programs of the prototype compiled within timeframes of five to eight minutes Some of the larger programs of the expanded version however required as long as twenty minutes to compile This factor significantly impeded system development progress Debugging SCL programs can also be difficult When a SAS AF system abends the message log does not indicate which program caused the error Instead it only specifies the error message and the values of all variables in the errant program at the time of the abend As a result if program variable names are not unique or easily recognizable de
13. yed Another nice feature of SCL is that it contains a series of error control statements and variables which enabled a PROGRAM screen to mimic a MENU screen Coding SAFARI extracts requires that five main functions be performed Since some of these functions are composed of several sub functions keeping track of steps completed can be confusing The method chosen to ease this process was to initially highlight each of the five menu options using reverse video Each time a task is completed the highlighting is removed from that option SAS AF MENU screens however do not allow menu options to be highlighted Consequently a PROGRAM screen was designed to look like the desired menu and the background SCL program incorporated error statements to control the highlighting Exhibit I shows both the PROGRAM screen designed to handle menu functions and the SCL code that controls processing In the INIT section of the program five screen variables are initialized to have values that correspond to the five functions for coding SAFARI extracts Since by default SCL highlights with reverse video all screen variables that are flagged with the ERRORON statement as having errors this statement is used to signal SAS that each of these five variables is error The effect of this is that when the screen is initially displayed all five menu options are highlighted Later in the MAIN section each time an option is select
Download Pdf Manuals
Related Search