I opened case  TS015098231 with IBM, and they suggested I ask the question here.    I cannot seem to locate much documentation or training on producing XML formatted reports within zSecure.    Some of what I have learned so far is from trial/error and a few pages from a 3rd party training group.

I am training a number of my teammates in zSecure/Carla and I wanted to cover the option of producing reports in an XML format.   But to me it does not appear straight forward.  Examples:

#1.  Used FILEOPTION etc to put the XML output to a dataset.  I assumed I needed to download the dataset to my laptop/desktop to be accessed by something that can view XML files (i.e. MS Excel).    But when accessing the file no report was presented, even though you see XML statements in the file.

#2.  In this case I used the email option to send the XML file as an attachment.    I would have assumed I could just click on the attachment and I would see the report.   Actually I had to save the attachment, use MS Excel to open the file.   There were at least 2 questions to answer about style sheets.   Once those questions were properly answered the report looked great.

Is there any documentation / training on XML that might show examples on how it should be properly set up?

Thanks

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Linnea Sullivan
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Hi Linnea, 

the zSecure Admin and Audit user reference manual contains a small section about XML support:

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/szs/3.1.0?topic=introduction-xml-support-within-security-zsecure

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Tom Zeehandelaar
z/OS Security Enablement Specialist - zSecure developer
IBM
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Original Message:
Sent: Wed January 03, 2024 02:00 PM
From: Linnea Sullivan
Subject: zSecure Carla XML documentation

I opened case  TS015098231 with IBM, and they suggested I ask the question here.    I cannot seem to locate much documentation or training on producing XML formatted reports within zSecure.    Some of what I have learned so far is from trial/error and a few pages from a 3rd party training group.

I am training a number of my teammates in zSecure/Carla and I wanted to cover the option of producing reports in an XML format.   But to me it does not appear straight forward.  Examples:

#1.  Used FILEOPTION etc to put the XML output to a dataset.  I assumed I needed to download the dataset to my laptop/desktop to be accessed by something that can view XML files (i.e. MS Excel).    But when accessing the file no report was presented, even though you see XML statements in the file.

#2.  In this case I used the email option to send the XML file as an attachment.    I would have assumed I could just click on the attachment and I would see the report.   Actually I had to save the attachment, use MS Excel to open the file.   There were at least 2 questions to answer about style sheets.   Once those questions were properly answered the report looked great.

Is there any documentation / training on XML that might show examples on how it should be properly set up?

Thanks

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Linnea Sullivan
------------------------------

zSecure reports in XML are nice because the reports are generated with useful CSS for viewing with a web browser or excel.  However, the safety features of excel have improved since the time when zSecure got its XML support, so now the user has to disable those safeties in excel, or answer the prompts.

XML support in CARLa introduces significant limitations to CARLa programs.  See here.  Also, for best effect you should generate the XML in UTF8 format, making it laborious to inspect the XML code in ISPF, transfer it to workstations, etc.  In my experience, it is far easier to use tab separated variable with titles (TSVT) to transfer zSecure reports to a spreadsheet.

newlist type=racf header=tsvt
  select class=user special
  sortlist profile("Userid") name ljdate

Note, the string you specified as column header will turn up in the title line of the TSVT file, if no title was specified the default zSecure title will be found.

The resulting EBCDIC report can be transferred to windows/linux in text mode with no hassle.  Specify tab as the field separator during import.  One limitation: report headers go awol.

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Rob van Hoboken
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