Scheduling of deployments

We are interested in automating our use of LMi.  We do regular deployments at the QUA level twice a week and PDN level once a week in our organization.  What were interested - and some other products allow - is for the developer to put in a scheduled promotion request.  As in, the developer adds a promotion request for a specific date, aprovals are then requested / gathered in lmi, and then on the scheduled date and time, assuming all approvals are present, the task promotes and deploys automatically.  Is there any capability of this in Lmi?

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John Weirich
Software Architect for IBM i
Nelnet
Jacksonville TX US
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Hi John,

Thank you for your enquiry.

From your explanation, I understand that you are looking for a Promote scheduler which is not provided in LMi.
However, the following solution/concept, may address your requirement.
Of course, this is a very rough sketch which may need further refinement.

LMi provides a Command Interface, which includes  ACMSPROMOT.
LMi also provides the concept of Task (group of objects for a specific reason to Promote)

Part 1.
Write a CL that generates a name based on the run date to act as a Task name to be selected for Promotion.
Example
When run on Friday October 14th the name becomes U_20221014 (for UAT)  or when run on following Friday October 21st the name becomes P_20221021 (for Production)

In the same CL include ACMSPROMOT to promote objects from this generated Task name.

The CL may be placed in the IBMi scheduler to execute weekly (U_) or bi-weekly (P_) to Promote objects in the Task for that run-date.

It may be necessary to select "Action upon failure . . . . . . *CONT" to allow for objects not approved, to be dropped from the process.

Part 2
The developer would move objects into Tasks for the required Promote future run date, based on the above naming convention.
Via the LMi Menu
LMi Main Menu > 2. Work with objects by developer > 21=Assign tasks*  (or 22=Remove task assignments)
Or using the LMi Command
ACMSADDTKO - Add Object to Task
Hence, objects moved into task U_20221118 will be included in the Promote run of November 18th

Part 3
Approval could be provided by the LMi function "Request Promote" which could be authorised to the Approver, (Not the developer).
Hence the approver would approve by "Request Promote" via the LMi Menu:
LMi Main Menu > 1. Work with objects by release  > 17=Request promote* (37=Request promote to parent*)
Or using the LMi Commands
ACMSRQSPRM - Request Promote Objects  (ACMSRQSPMP - Request Promote to Parent)

LMi Command Interface
The full list of LMi commands could be found via:
Lifecycle Manager (IBM i Edition) General Topics Reference V8.5 > Chapter 7: Command interface

I hope that you find this information useful.
Best regards




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Jay Mikaiel
Senior Technical Support Engineer
Rocket Software
UK
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