CICS Event Management

CICS events enable loosely-coupled communication between components. Programs can define events, signal them, and other components can react asynchronously. Events integrate naturally with timers and BTS process orchestration.

Defining and Signaling Events

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* Define a composite event in RDO (conceptually)
CEDA DEFINE EVENT(ORDER-CREATED) GROUP(APP-GRP)
 
* Signal event from a program
EXEC CICS SIGNAL EVENT('ORDER-CREATED')
    CHANNEL('ORDER-CH')
    RESP(WS-RESP)
END-EXEC.

Querying Events

Inspect event definitions and recent activity using inquiry commands (site tooling varies):

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* Example pseudo-inquiry (actual fields depend on RDO object)
EXEC CICS INQUIRE EVENT('ORDER-CREATED')
    RESP(WS-RESP)
END-EXEC.

Design Patterns

Fan-out Processing

One transaction signals an event; multiple listeners react, enabling decoupled architectures.

Timer-triggered Events

Combine with timers to schedule periodic signals (e.g., nightly reconciliation).

Error Handling

• INVREQ: Validate event name and environment setup.
• NOTFND: Event not defined or available in current region.

Consuming Events

Event-driven programs retrieve context via channels/containers provided when the event is signaled.

Monitoring

Use CICS Explorer event views or INQUIRE APIs to inspect configured events and recent activity.