Request: A client recently asked for assistance in balancing their 401(k) deductions. See article 50001 for a summary explanation of the request and solution. The specific portion of that request, which this article details, relates to the clients need to run a DDS report for multiple deduction codes at the same time. The specific request was for 19 deduction codes. The client asked that they submit a single emPath report request which triggered the DDS report to run for 19 deduction codes. Solution: Use emPath to prompt the user for a date range. Then create a temporary PYT file requesting that the DDS report be ran for multiple deduction codes. Additional articles will be referenced in this article detailing how the resulting DDS report is parsed and SQL is generated to create tables. Then those tables are joined with other tables in a view which can be used by Business Objects or Crystal to generate balancing spreadsheets.
The other benefit of this article is to demonstrate the power of using custom programs PYTparse and PYTinsert.
(1) The delivered PYT process is depicted in the following diagram:
(2) The power of custom program PYTparse is depicted in the following diagram:
(3) The possibilities of custom program PYTparse and PYTinsert are shown in the following diagram and description of how they were used in one specific request:
(3.1) An emPath job request was created prompting the user for a from and a to date. In this specific case the job was named "401k - build 401(k) DDS extract ".
(3.2) A user controlled configuration file was created defining what the custom PYTparse program should do with the 401k report request. The specifics of that configuration file are shown below:
name str value
env variable len pos len
---- -------------------- --- --- ---
401K FROM_DATE 009 023 008
401K TO_DATE 007 031 008
(3.3) The custom program PYTparse runs and creates a batch command file which sets environment variables as defined in the configuration file defined in step 3.2.
(3.4) The batch command file called such that the environment variables are set. These variables are then available to be used by COBOL programs or SQL scripts.
(3.5) The custom program PYTinsert runs and adds multiple records to a temporary PYT file. In this specific example there are 19 records added to the PYT requesting that the DDS report (program pr852) be ran for 19 different deduction codes using the date range entered in step 3.1 above.
Note that user controlled configuration capability will be added to the PYTinsert program in the near future.
(3.6) The standard delivered pr852 program is ran such that DDS reports are created as requested.
Additional articles will be referenced in this article detailing how the resulting DDS report is parsed and SQL is generated to create tables. Then those tables are joined with other tables in a view which can be used by Business Objects or Crystal to generate balancing spreadsheets.
All of this from a single user report request.