How its Used

How is the Profile Schemes Feature Used?

Here's a real life example of how a BlueZone Administrator can make BlueZone configuration modifications without affecting your user's personalized configuration settings.

Scenario

Let's say that your users are allowed to make and save their own display, and keyboard mapping customizations to their BlueZone Mainframe Display sessions. However, a situation comes up that requires a change to the IBM 3270 Mainframe Host IP Address (or DNS Name).

Not Using the Profile Schemes Feature

If you are not using the Profile Schemes Feature, you will modify your Top Level BlueZone Configuration Profile by changing the IP Address (or DNS name). Then, you will instruct all your users to rename their current .zmd file. The next time they run BlueZone Web-to-Host, the modified .zmd file will be downloaded. This will accomplish the task of changing the Host IP Address but, all your user's personalized customizations like display, font, or keyboard mapping changes will be lost, unless you teach your users how to export these settings from their old renamed .zmd file and import them into the new .zmd file that was just downloaded. This could be a Help Desk nightmare.

Using the Profile Schemes Feature

When using the Profile Schemes Feature, your .zmd file will already have the Profile Schemes dialog configured to allow the importation of a TN3270E Dialof Level Profile (.tn3). The .tn3 file contains all the BlueZone Mainframe Display TN3270E configuration settings like, Host IP Address (or DNS Name) and TCP Port. Using the Wizard, you will modify your .zmd file by modifying the Host IP Address (or DNS Name). Then you will save just the TN3270E dialog settings as a Dialog Level Configuration Profile. It will automatically have the same name as your .zmd file and will automatically be created with a file extension of .tn3, and be written to the proper place on your workstation or web server.

Once you add the new .tn3 file to your downloaded file list, the new .tn3 file will be automatically downloaded to all your users the next time they launch BlueZone Web-to-Host.

When this new .tn3 file is downloaded to your users, only the TN3270 settings in your user's .zmd file will be overridden, leaving all the user's personalized customizations intact.

What We Learned

Using the Profile Schemes feature it's possible to allow your users to make BlueZone configuration customizations, yet still allow the BlueZone Administrator make configuration modifications without overwriting the user's customizations.
You must have the Allow Local Save? feature enabled in order for the Profile Schemes feature to work.
You must pre-configure your Top Level Configuration Profile in advance by checking the feature or features you wish to be able to override.
The Web-to-Host Control Module will never allow the overwriting of a Top Level BlueZone Configuration Profile, i.e., a .zmd file.
The Profile Schemes feature works by a downloading a Dialog Level Configuration Profile which overrides values stored in the user's Top Level Configuration Profile. In other words, you have a constant Top Level Configuration Profile that never changes, and you modify it by adding Dialog Level Configuration Profiles that override values in the Top Level Configuration Profile.
A Dialog Level Configuration Profile is a subset of a Top Level Configuration Profile.
There are as many as nine Dialog Level Configuration Profiles for a single Top Level Configuration Profile.