Is DSPMSG passe'?

I don't often do a DSPMSG, and many times when I do I only briefly glance
at it (often not rolling through screens) and hitting F16 to clear it out.
I just checked it out on one screen and had to page up 24 times to get
through them all. This is my first session on our development lpar - the
one with *NOTIFY. 22 times on my first session on our production lpar.
Some people's answer is to put everybody in *BREAK mode. What I've
discovered with that is that people then use multiple sessions and then
NEVER use that first session because the messages are too annoying. Sort
of like when I have Sametime going I turn off the ability to automatically
put the chat into the foreground when someone starts their IM session. I
hate my typing being interrupted.

I don't think I am the sole person not checking messages.

Let's look at GO CLEANUP.
1. Change cleanup options
Number of days to keep:
User messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Now, match this with
Time cleanup starts each day . . . . . . . . . . 22:00:00
Now, do a DSPMSG QSYSOPR and roll to that time. You may see numerous
messages like:
000003 of 000045 messages deleted from TB...
000117 of 000614 messages deleted from TM...
000006 of 000076 messages deleted from TO...
000021 of 000170 messages deleted from TR...
000003 of 000018 messages deleted from TU...
000041 of 000197 messages deleted from VI...
000013 of 000081 messages deleted from VI...
000015 of 000092 messages deleted from YA...
000005 of 000022 messages deleted from YL...
Being really impressed with stuff like:
003570 of 025616 messages deleted from MIMIXOWN.
000477 of 003687 messages deleted from EDIONR.
000536 of 003279 messages deleted from ADOPT.
Ok, these three are system type messages. Numerous job schedule entry
jobs, etc. But let's look at some user messages.
000147 of 000849 messages deleted from K...
000205 of 000575 messages deleted from B...
Since cleanup runs every night and only keeps message for 7 days we can
see that the one user can get 205 messages in a single day. And, that is
only if they didn't clear some out (by using F11 or something)!

I guess this is WHY we use that option in GO CLEANUP. I checked that 'B'
person. Everyone was a "Job completed normally". Perhaps some of these
people are like some email people - they read their messages promptly, but
never delete a thing. Not that I would put money on that though.

Now, I tested a couple of people (like my boss) and at IPL time (before
they have a chance to log in) I put a message queue monitor program on
their message queue and everytime they get a message it automatically
sends it to them in an email. Users may quickly set up some email filters
to put these into folders to deal with later (or Trash). But I am not so
sure that this is the answer. Let's take me for example. My work email
box has 1,873 unread messages in my Inbox (out of over 3,900+ total
messages in my Inbox). That doesn't count Midrange-L. I filter that to a
different folder and they are all kept up and are all read somewhat
promptly.

Before you roll your own on a message queue monitor you may want to
consider software to do that. And only notify someone if a 'critical'
message comes through. For example we have some software to monitor
QSYSOPR. I sure do not want to get notified for stuff like
Job message queue for 570171/QUSER/QZRCSRVS has been wrapped.
or all the "x of y messages deleted..." as shown above.
But jobs with an inquiry message, or
"Unit 140 with device parity protection not fully operational." may be of
some significance. These packages have a lot of filtering available. I
could go on about that but I don't want this to turn into a plug for
message monitoring software. I want to keep it with a feeling on the
usefulness of DSPMSG.

Happy Friday.

Rob Berendt