BTS events

CICS business transaction services uses BTS events to signal progress in a process. An event informs an activity that an action is required or has completed.

“Event” is used in its ordinary sense of “something that happens”. To define an event recognizable by CICS® business transaction services, such a happening is given a name. An activity program uses such commands as DEFINE INPUT EVENT , DEFINE TIMER , and the EVENT option of DEFINE ACTIVITY to name events about which it wants to be informed.

Named events have Boolean values - FIRED or NOTFIRED. When first defined, an event has the NOTFIRED value. When an event occurs it is said to fire (that is, to make the transition from NOTFIRED to FIRED). An activity can, for example:
  • Discover the event (or events) whose firing caused it to be reattached ( RETRIEVE REATTACH EVENT )
  • Test whether an event has fired ( TEST EVENT).

BTS events can be atomic or composite.