DSXchange

Then explicitly convert from string to timestamp.

Nothing, your version is bugged and doesn't work with parameters. You'll either need to upgrade to 7.5 for the fix or perhaps ask Support for a patch. You could write a routine to do the work using DSExecute, of course, and swap in a Routine Activity stage as a work-around.

So... you are not using one of the 'dsjob' command line options that makes it wait for the job to complete?

-wait
-jobstatus
-userstatus

Pick one. Each cause the command to wait for the job to complete, the difference is in what is reported back.

Do you not have an 'enterprise scheduler'? Something like Control-M would not care that the two parts of this process are on different servers.

Even so, you don't think you could use some form of 'remote shell' from one to the other to launch the dsjob script on completion of the load?

The documentation for the database stages should state whether Large Objects are supported or not. They haven't been before this release and I'd wager they still aren't, but you never know.

While obviously you could poll an Oracle table every X for this record, or do the same for a file, why not simplify things? Why not arrange for whatever process knows when this 'load is completed from source' to then start your Sequence? Should be trivial with an Enterprise Scheduler and a 'dsjob' s...

First off, yes - when you migrate jobs to another server, any plugins you've used in the job must have been installed on that server. They will not transfer with the job itself. As to the error you are seeing, I'm not certain as I've only seen similar errors when the stage was in fact not installed....

How long has your organization used DataStage? If I had to guess, I would think it has been in use since before Sequence jobs were available and so were (as everyone was) writing their own 'Batch' jobs. And just got used to working that way, never making the 'switch' to Sequence jobs. As Ray notes, ...

I've never had a need to use that option. Open a case with your official Support provider, let us know what they say.

Curiously, there is a FAQ on this subject:

http://www.dsxchange.com/viewtopic.php?t=90697

You are going to need to be a wee bit more explicit than that.

'D/MDY[2,2,4]' should get you closer.

Substring off the "2nd thru len()" characters and concatenate your new value onto the front it that.

Pivot them (your data pairs) out into individual records.

And how many records did that statement update? Hint: there's no job name in DS_JOBOBJECTS.