First, welcome to the wonderful world of ClearCase administration. :-)

Secondly, if you're using ClearCase on NT, you may want to shy away from using IPC::Open3 because it isn't included in Rational's slimmed down version of perl that comes bundled with ClearCase. Instead, I typically rely on $! and the error code. Basically, I know that the operation failed, and therefore I know what to do. In your example, if the checkout fails, your script can stop, give a warning, whatever. Typically, the reason why is in $!.

You may want to register on Rational's Customer's only site. There you will find many contributed perl scripts which may help you in your endeavor.

Don't forget, too, that there are some scripts in the ClearCase installation directory which also may help you get started.

Cheers,
Shendal