WMCPA Spring Conference 2023

There are many common performance problems that can impact almost any shop. This session will review real-world performance issues, covering the details of the issue, the impact to the business, and the analysis that was done to identify and resolve the problem. The case studies include both application issues and environmental issues. Understanding these common problems can help you prevent them from happening in your shop.

What are your career goals? Sure, we're all great with technology, but to continue growing in our careers requires that we do the unthinkable... we actually have to TALK to each other. And even worse... we have to TALK to the business people in our companies! Why? WHY? Why would we possibly want to TALK to PEOPLE? The answer to that question is that today more than ever, technology IS the business. So it makes sense that IT can help or hurt a business more than ever. It's critical that we align our IT efforts, goals, and strategies with those of the business - and all of that requires good communication. Would you like to have a seat at the table, to be taken seriously as a businessperson, and to have a voice in the decisions our companies make? Then this is the interactive workshop for you. Fair warning... this will be an INTERACTIVE workshop. Attendees will be encouraged to speak in front of the group, and will be divided into teams to work together on critical thinking exercises and role play. Yes, you'll be asked to talk, to work in groups, and to role play. If you find that uncomfortable, perfect! Take that first step outside your comfort zone. Enroll, participate, be uncomfortable, and grow... and you may just find yourself listened to with newfound respect and interest by your business. Come to this interactive workshop to partner with your business and communicate for success.

Education in today’s IT and Business Environment challenges both the Company and the employee. What skills are needed to provide for today’s (and tomorrow’s) business needs? How does the company and the employee deal with these challenges? How to decide; what to learn, how to learn and when to learn, when planning for future needs. These challenges differ depending on where a person is in their careers path. Jim discusses these challenges and more in this presentation. Great presentation for managers and employees! • The question of being relevant? • How to know… your relevancy  • Uh Oh… I’m not relevant (what to do) • Business vs IT Skills – the Balance • The Specialist vs the generalist – Let’s hire a consultant

Learning Objectives:
1. Internalize the need to continue learning in Information Technology 2. Understand how your current skills can be leveraged into new skills 3. Have a better understanding of how to approach today's educational opportunities

Building Dashboards and Reports over IBM i Services

IBM i Services provide SQL interfaces into IBM i system/object/security information. Wouldn't it be nice to have an easy way to build reports or dashboards, create trending reports or consolidate data from multiple systems into a single view? Of course it would! And that's exactly what this session will show you with Web Query.

Learning Objectives:

1. Create dashboards over IBM i Systems and object metrics in a flash
2. Schedule important reports like "how close are we getting to system or database limits" to regularly monitor and avoid potential catastrophe.
3. Enhance the value of IBM i Services to monitor key performance or object size metrics.

There are many MI functions that can be used in RPG programs. This does not mean that you have to learn how to program in the MI language, instead, you'll see how IBM have exposed some functions for use in high-level languages such as RPG.

• Learn how to read the MI documentation
• Learn how to prototype MI functions
• See some useful MI functions for everyday development

Business-critical applications must be up and running reliably without failure. When something unexpected occurs, you must identify the cause and correct it quickly. The relentless push to do more with less is only going to intensify while the tolerance for failure keeps dropping. Yet identifying points of failure can be tricky as complexities scale. IBM i offers a product at no additional charge that helps ascertain application and infrastructure health. The IBM Administration Runtime Expert for i (ARE) can be used to define attributes of a healthy environment and use those defined attributes to validate that the environment is as expected. This session will cover everything you need to know about ARE.

The RUNSQLSTM command lets you run multiple SQL statements in a single call, like a script. You can do even more now by calling CL commands directly. See how this can expand your options.