Configuring Tasks for ChangeMan ZMF Change Packages

After the ChangeMan ZMF Execution Provider configuration has been added or updated as needed, users such as Release Engineers can set up a set of ordered deployment tasks to complete the set of ChangeMan ZMF actions needed to deploy through the environments as desired.

To add a ChangeMan ZMF deployment task, you use the ChangeMan ZMF execution provider. Typically, to use the ChangeMan ZMF execution provider, in a Release Package in the Deployment Tasks tab, do the following:

Click Edit Deployment Tasks.
Click the + icon to add a task.
Select the ChangeMan ZMF execution provider name as shown in the following figure.
In the resulting form, select an action.
Details for each action are described in subsequent topics. Before continuing to the details of each action, you should read the following topics:

Deployment Task Order

Example Task List

Example Tasks if Testing Fails

Promotion and Demotion Rules

Available Actions

Deployment Task Order

The order in which you set up the deployment tasks is very important for ChangeMan ZMF actions. The actions you can perform are determined by your ChangeMan ZMF implementation's rules, and actions that you can perform for each environment depend on what makes sense for that environment. You must be very familiar with your implementation of ChangeMan ZMF and use the same order of actions as you would use if you were entering ChangeMan ZMF commands in ISPF or running batch jobs to achieve the same result.

Example Task List

An example set of ChangeMan ZMF deployment tasks is as follows and shown in the subsequent figure.

audit
promote to dev
approve test
promote in test
approve for prod

Note: This figure shows the task list after the deployment units have been linked to the deployment tasks. After creating the tasks, you must link the change packages to them. See Linking Deployment Units to Deployment Tasks.

Example Tasks if Testing Fails

All active deployment tasks you add are executed; they are not conditionally executed. Therefore, if you need to reject and revert based on a failure, you'll need to activate or create additional deployment tasks at the time they are needed and inactivate any tasks in the list that should no longer be executed.

Tip: To inactivate a deployment task, edit the deployment tasks and beside the task, click an active environment name icon to gray it out. This inactivates it for that environment.

The positive path is shown in the preceding example. For other actions, such as reject, revert, and so on, you must set up tasks as needed. For example, if "promote in test" was successful but testing failed when QA tested the z/OS application changes that the ChangeMan ZMF change package contained, other deployment tasks must be set up to get the environment back to the condition necessary to continue the release testing. That may be to reject it, revert the environment back to how it was before, or whatever the release process you follow for z/OS requires.

The deployment tasks that need to be set up depend on the promotion rule set for the application. Refer to Promotion and Demotion Rules. If the promotion rule is set to “4”, then the following tasks must be created and executed in the same environment where the package was last promoted. Here are steps:

Fail the deployment task
Return it back to construction
Create a demote from dev task
Create a revert task
Start the deployment to execute the demotion and revert deployment tasks
Fix the code
Re-execute the audit and promote to dev task

Tip: You can set up template tasks ahead of time and copy them in at run time if they are needed.

Promotion and Demotion Rules

For reference for the preceding examples, this section describes the promotion and demotion rules that may be set for your change packages. For more information on rules, refer to the ChangeMan ZMF documentation.

These rules regulate the movement of components from Promotion libraries to staging (for editing) and back again.

0 Allows the promotion and demotion of components even if the change package has not yet been frozen. This is liberal promotion and demotion.
Note: For ChangeMan ZMF version 8.1.1, the package must be in frozen status before it can be promoted or demoted.

Rules 1 thru 4 restrict promotion to Frozen (status FRZ) packages only:

1 Requires selective demotion of a component followed by selective unfreeze, edit and promotion directly back to the package's promotion level.
2 Requires selective demotion of a component followed by selective unfreeze, edit and promotion through all intermediate promotion levels.
3 Requires full demotion of the entire package followed by a selective unfreeze, edit and promotion through all intermediate promotion levels.
4 Requires full demotion of the entire package followed by a revert of the entire package to DEV status.

Available Actions

See the following topics for details on the ChangeMan ZMF actions available to select in deployment tasks: