Before you submit a batch job with the SUBMIT command, you must know which data set (or member of a partitioned data set) contains the job or jobs you want to submit. Each job consists of job control language (JCL) statements, program instructions, and data.

The first JCL statement in the data set is usually a JOB statement. The job name in the JOB statement can be up to eight characters long and should consist of your user ID followed by one or more letters or numbers, for example, YOURIDA or YOURID5.

If the job name does not begin with your user ID, you can submit the job with the SUBMIT command and request its status with the STATUS command. However, you cannot refer to the job with the CANCEL or OUTPUT command unless your system uses an installation-written exit routine permitting this. If your system uses the default IBM-supplied exit routine, the CANCEL and OUTPUT commands will be unable to refer to the job.

If the job name consists of only your user ID, the system prompts you for one or more characters to complete the job name. This allows you to change job names without re-editing the data. For example, you may submit the same job several times, and supply a different character for the job name each time you are prompted.

//userid JOB accounting info,
//   userid, ** JOB STATEMENT GENERATED BY SUBMIT **
//   NOTIFY=userid,
//   MSGLEVEL=(1,1)

TSO/E prompts you for a character to complete the job name. The job accounting information is the information specified by the user when logging on to the system. With no JOB statement in the data set, the security label assigned to the job (if your installation uses security labels) is the security label you are logged on at.

If there is a JOB statement for the job you are submitting, and the JOB statement contains a SECLABEL operand, then the job will run using that security label. If the JOB statement for the batch job does not contain a SECLABEL operand, the job will run at the security label you are logged on at.

If SECLABEL is present on the JOB statement and the security label specified is greater than the one you are logged on with, the job will run in the background, but you will not be able to cancel the job (CANCEL command) or process the output from the job (OUTPUT command) during your current session. You have to log off and log back on to TSO/E at a security label equal to or greater than the job's security label.

As a practice, you should examine a batch job's JOB statement before submitting the job to verify the SECLABEL (if any) associated with the job.

When you enter the SUBMIT command, you must give the name of a data set (or data sets) containing the batch job (or jobs). You can also use the NONOTIFY operand to specify that you do not want to be notified when the batch job with a generated JOB statement terminates. The SUBMIT command performs best if you enter the fully-qualified data set name in quotation marks. Submitted data sets must have a logical record length of 80 bytes, a record format of fixed-blocked (FB), and must not contain lowercase characters.