The sign-on service offers the user a range of practical options, which are outlined below:
The sign-on service for terminals can be conducted as a formatted dialog.
Start formats can contain current data such as the date, time, a bulletin, etc.
In an application with multilingual users, LTERM-specific start formats can be used to output a welcome screen in the respective language. This option is only available for terminals.
User-specific start formats are useful for showing information specific to a user group (bulletin, menu, etc.).
TS applications can sign on to a UTM application using a sign-on service with a real user ID. They are thus integrated in the system access and data access concept of openUTM.
A real name entered by the user can be converted into a user ID which is defined in the UTM generation (USER username).
In the case of a global DB/DC authorization concept, a database call can be used in the second part of the sign-on service to retrieve the current authorization profile for this USER from the database and possibly store it in a user-specific long-term storage area (ULS).
In the second part, the sign-on service can ask the user to change his or her password, for example because the system is monitoring the time span in which the user may use the same password.
Statistics can be produced on all attempted and successful sign-ons.
The FHS format handling system offers the option for terminals of loading the P keys using a global attribute of a #format. In the second part of the sign-on service, for example, the P keys can be loaded user-specifically.
The sign-on service can also provide the user with useful information in the case of a subsequent service restart. Such information includes bulletins, maps of keyboard layout, or a display of the service restart. This requires an additional dialog step.
If openUTM starts the sign-on service following a SIGN OB call (= KDCOFF BUT by program), it may be advisable to read the last input from the terminal with MGET if new authorization data was already entered there.