Expert: Concise Systems/Laird Scranton - 12/27/2007

Question
i have an AS400 on the west coast, and one on the East coast, and i want to transfer a file. What transfer platform do you recommend?  if i can upload files to excel, can i download files using excel also.

Answer
There are many different options, depending on if and how the AS/400's communicate with each other, what kind of file you want to send, how large the file is, and on what timeframe and frequency the file must be sent and received.  

Transfering AS/400 files to and from EXCEL is a fairly simple task, but requires an AS/400 programmer to write a program or two.  Presuming that your network can 'see' folders on the AS/400's disk, for a file that begins in EXCEL, you would save it as a comma-delimited file in an AS/400 folder.  Then use the CPYFRMPCD command to copy it to a flat file on the AS/400.  The programmer would write a program to read the comma-delimited data and write it to the AS/400 file.  The reverse is also commonly done - a custom program creates a comma-delimited file from the AS/400 data, which gets copied to an AS/400 folder using the CPYTOPCD command, then opened in EXCEL.

Perhaps the least exotic solution - and requiring the least programming effort - is to save the file to tape on one AS/400, then simply restore it on the other.

Other solutions are possible, depending on how and if the systems are linked for direct communication with each other. However, you would probably need a qualified AS/400 programmer on-site to sort out the likeliest method.

- Laird