If you encounter a problem that requires a correction to FOCUS rather than to your own procedures, the correction will be incorporated in a future release. In some situations, you will receive the correction to your problem as soon as it is available, regardless of when the next release is scheduled. It can come in one of two forms; either as a service pack or as an individual PTF, and they are identified by a PTF number and update level or a service pack level.

You will receive either a service pack or an individual PTF only in response to a specific problem that you yourself report. The solution to problems reported by other users will reach your installation by way of either the same PTF or the next release. The accompanying documentation will tell you how to apply it, identify the problem being corrected, and most importantly, state the range of releases into which the service pack or PTF can be incorporated. It is critical that you do not apply a service pack or PTF outside the indicated release range. If you do, you will probably damage the copy of FOCUS that you are trying to correct.

If you apply more than one PTF to a release, you must apply them in update level order. For this reason, please keep a record of all PTFs applied to each of your copies of FOCUS. If you install an individual PTF in a release later than Release 7.2, it is recommended that you install the latest service pack created after that individual PTF.

All service packs are cumulative in that they contain all corrections included in previous service packs.

The application of individual PTFs does not require that the FOCUS NSSs be redefined to CP.