Close Of Business (COB)

Introduction
Objective
At the end of the session you will have
• Adequate knowledge to understand
• COB and its Stages
• The BATCH application
• Executing COB in T24
• Date changes in T24
• Monitoring
• Troubleshooting
COB - Close Of Business
• COB stands for Close Of Business
• Marks the end of all financial transactions for the day and rolls
forward the T24 date to the next business day
• COB can be run on every working day of the bank
Let’s understand one of the processes done during COB with a
simple example
Stages of COB
1. Application (A) [Link] Wide (S)

Batch [Link] (R)

5. Online (O) Stages

4. Start of Day (D)

What is a Batch Stage?
BATCH STAGE

A000 A100 S000 R099

PROCESS 1 PROCESS 2 PROCESS 3 PROCESS 4 PROCESS 5

Job 1 Job 2 Job 3 Job 4 Job 5 Job 6 Job 7

Why should the processes be executed in a particular order?

BATCH Records

Why is the Bank

Mnemonic a part of
the BATCH record
ID?
BATCH Record

Frequency

-D
- D nn
-W
-M
- M nn
-Y
- Y nn
-A
-SW
-SM
-SY
BATCH Record
BATCH Record
Process Status And Job Status
Update BATCH – Mark Process Status as 1
Next batch Running(0 to 1)
record

Update BATCH – Mark Job Status as

2
Running(0 to 1)

Execute Job 3

Update BATCH – Mark Job Status as

4
Completed( 1 to 2)

No
Is it last job in the BATCH? 5
5.1
Ye
Update BATCH – MarksProcess Status as
Completed(1 to 2)
5.2
Running COB
• Running COB
Execution Of COB
• The entire COB process is controlled by tSM
• tSM stands for T24 Service Manager
• As the name implies, it acts as a manager and controls all worker
processes that perform COB
• Launches worker processes
• Checks if worker processes are running as scheduled
• If any of the worker processes are dead, launches substitute worker
processes
• The actual COB process is executed by tSAs
• tSA stands for T24 Service Agent (Worker processes)
• Execute the jobs (routines) defined in BATCH record(s)
• tSM and tSA’s are started on the T24 application servers
tSM And tSA - MS
• A module called MS needs to be installed separately if COB is to be run on Multiple
Application Servers

• Default thumb rule : No. of tSAs = No. of processors * 2

T24 Application Server 1 T24 Application Server 2

tSM tSM

tSA tSA tSA tSA tSA

[Link] -
Overview
•[Link]
• TSM is a service
• COB is a service
• Both services namely TSM and COB are pre-configured in
[Link] application
[Link] - TSM
[Link] - COB

User
Service Control
[Link] – Additional Feature
Review Time In [Link]
• Review Time
• The job of the tSM is to
• Read the [Link] records with [Link] field set to START (COB in our case)

• Read the relevant [Link] records

• Check if the required number of agents are actually running

If yes, check to see if they are performing their job
If no, instruct the user to start the required number of agents

• Sleep

• The sleep time is defined using the field [Link].

• Specify the value in the TSM record
Time Out In [Link]
• Every agent (tSA) is required to tell the tSM (update the manager)
that it is performing the task assigned to it
• The tSM is designed to wait for a stipulated amount of time for
each agent to report that it is alive and working
• The tSM will term the agent as dead, if it doesn’t get a reply within
the stipulated time.
• It will stop the tSA process at the operating system level (kill the
process) and start a substitute process
• The time given for every agent to report to the tSM that it is alive
and working is set in the field [Link] (Specify the value in the
COB record)
[Link]
• Parameter file
• Has only one record – ID is SYSTEM
Steps – Running COB (Phantom Mode)
• Check [Link]
• Set the field [Link] to “START” in the records TSM
and COB in the [Link] application. Commit and
authorise both the records
• Login to jsh ->
• Type [Link]
Steps – Running COB (Interactive Mode)
• Login to jsh -> and type [Link] –DEBUG
• Open another session and type “tSA” followed by the agent
number
Internal Working
• Behind the Scenes
COB – High Level Overview
Initiate COB

System mode changed to B(atch) Reflected in the DATES

application

Execution of jobs in A-S-R-D order

System mode changed back to O(nline) Reflected in the DATES

application

Execution of jobs in O(nline) stage

Date Change
• There will be one record per company in the DATES application
• ID of the record will be the company code
 Date Change During COB
1
Initiate COB

2
BATCH Record ID : [Link]
Batch Stage : A001
Job Name : [Link]

3
BATCH Record ID : [Link]
Batch Stage : D000
Job Name : [Link]

4
After the Online Stage is complete, the NEXT
RUN DATE is updated for all jobs executed today
(excluding jobs with FREQUENCY D and A)
Date Change
• The record in the DATES application that gets created during COB
<[Link]> – COB, does not get deleted after COB
• The record will exist and will be overwritten during the next COB
• COB doesn’t use the DATES record with @ID <[Link]>
for processing
• The record <[Link]> is created and is used by the T24
system for new transactions coming into the system while COB is
running (Possible only if NS module is installed)
• What is the NS module??
Non Stop (NS) Module
• COB supports 24 hour non stop processing
• For this a product named NS (Non Stop) needs to be installed
• When NS is installed, the T24 system will be available for input
when COB is in progress
• It uses the DATES record with @ID - <[Link]>
• Therefore, all transactions when input during COB, will have
the value day as next working day.
Eg: If we input a FT when COB is running on 10 JAN 2008, the
value date for the transaction will be taken as 11 JAN 2008
Sorting of Jobs
tSA 1(TSM)

tSA 2 tSA 3

Am I TSM? Am I TSM?

NO NO

Sort BATCH records Sort BATCH records

Job5, Job7, Job8, Job1, Job2, Job3 Job5, Job7, Job8, Job1, Job2, Job3

Batch Record ID Batch Stage Job Name Frequency Next Run Date
(Process) (Routine)
TODAY
04-May-
BNK/[Link] S001 Job1 D 2008
Job2 D
BNK/[Link] D010 Job3 D
Job4 M 07-May-2008
BNK/[Link] A005 Job5 D
Job6 A 10-May-2008
BNK/[Link] A100 Job7 D
Job8 D
Monitoring COB
• Monitoring COB
Understanding [Link] Output
• Enquiry [Link] shows the activity of every agent
Understanding [Link] Output

…. continuation from the previous screen

Where Does [Link] Enquiry Pick Up Data From?

• [Link]
• Only updated by tSM and tSA(s)
• Holds the status of all agents
• Type [Link] L to view details in the [Link] file
Other Ways To Monitor COB
• Type [Link] at the awaiting application prompt from
the
classic user interface of T24. Output is auto refreshed
Enquiry - [Link]
Troubleshooting
• Troubleshooting
[Link]
• Is there a file where all the errors encountered during COB can be
viewed?
Yes. The name of the file is [Link]
• The id to a record in [Link] is <[Link]>.<date>
• Eg: GB0010001.20080519
• [Link] contains one record per company per day running
COB. The details of the individual errors can be found in a file
called [Link]
• The id to record in [Link] application is present
in the
record of [Link]
[Link]
[Link]
[Link]
How do we tell T24 that an error has been resolved?
Questions
• While running COB the agents suddenly stops. What to do?
• COB stopped while running, there is no error logged in
[Link]. On restarting COB, it stops at the same place.
What to do?
Recap
• COB stands for Close Of Business
• Stages In COB
• Application Wide
• System Wide
• Reporting
• Start of Day
• Online
• BATCH is the application where all the COB jobs are defined
Recap (Cont.)
• tSM stands for T24 Service Manager
 this tSM is to monitor the tSAs running

• tSA stands for T24 Service Agent

 tSA’s execute the jobs (programs) defined in the BATCH application
• [Link]
• [Link]
Recap (Cont.)
• How to Start COB?
 Step 1: Modify the TSM record ([Link] I TSM)
 Set the following field SERVICE CONTROL : START
 Step 2 : Authorise the record TSM
 Step 3: Modify the COB record ([Link] I COB)
 Set the following field SERVICE CONTROL : START
 Step 4: Authorise the record COB
 Step 5: [Link] L (Check for any errors)
 Step 6: Logout of T24
Recap (Cont.)
• How to Start COB? Interactive/Debug Mode(Cont.)

 Step 7: Login to the server where you are going to run COB by typing
TELNET <ip address of the server> at run prompt
 ACCOUNT NAME: <O/S user name>
 PASSWORD: <password set for the above user>
 Step 8: Start the Service Manager (TSM)
 jsh r09 ~ -->[Link] –DEBUG
• manually launch tSA 2 for COB
• manually launch tSA 3 for COB
• manually launch tSA 4 for COB
 Step 9: Start the agent COB. Open another telnet session to the server (like step 7)
 jsh r09 ~ -->tSA 2
 Step 10: Repeat step 9 for the other two agents (tSA 3 and tSA 4)
Recap (Cont.)
• How to Start COB? Phantom Mode(Cont.)

 Step 7: Login to the server where you are going to run COB by typing
• TELNET <ip address of the server> at run prompt
 ACCOUNT NAME: <O/S user name>
 PASSWORD: <password set for the above user>
 Step 8: Start the Service Manager (TSM)
 jsh r09 ~ -->[Link]
 The TSM will take care of starting all the agents automatically
Recap (Cont.)
How to monitor COB?

• Using the enquiry [Link]

• ENQ [Link]
• [Link] L
• Using the tool [Link] (can run only from T24 classic
mode of navigation)
• Using the enquiry [Link]
• ENQ [Link]
Quiz
1. The order in which the batch stages in COB runs is A,S,D,R,O –
True /
False
2. SM is a valid frequency that can be attached to a Batch Job in T24
–
True / False
3. When there is only ONE Company record defined in T24 the BATCH
records for that company don’t have a Company Mnemonic prefix
attached to their IDs – True / False
4. For a Batch job with Daily frequency the [Link] field can
be
left blank – True / False
5. To run COB in interactive MODE use the [Link] –DEBUG
command from the jshell prompt – True / False
Summary
In this learning unit, you learnt about an Introduction to the COB
You will now be able to understand
• COB and its Stages
• The BATCH application
• Executing COB in T24
• Date changes in T24
• Monitoring COB
• Troubleshooting
THANK YOU