Setting the Default Retain Period and Run Frequency

The comments in the copybook, SPOOLHK.CPY explain the field values:

 05  ws-run-frequency                pic 99999 value 1

Change the value of ws-run-frequency to the number of days that you want to elapse between runs of spool housekeeping.

Note: The ws-run-frequency value is used only if the spool housekeeping is run using CICS. It has no meaning with the recommended method, that is when you schedule a batch job to run spool housekeeping.

05  ws-keep-for                         pic 99999 value 6

This is the default retain period and applies to ALL spool output, taking precedence over any class-specific retain periods that are greater than this value. It also determines the retain period for JESYSMSG spool files, making it possible to see jobs in the spool job list even when all their other spool files have been deleted due to a shorter class-specific retain period.

Change the value of ws-keep-for to the maximum number of days that you wish to keep spool output for. (This includes: i) Any held output for SYSOUT classes with no specific retain period ii) Any output that was scheduled for printing which is still in the spool print status)

Note: The retain interval is in days. Using one day is not recommended as a run shortly after midnight would delete spool files written the late previous night; that is, files that are only a few minutes or hours old.