Lesson 3: Schedules

SmartBatch provides easy-to-use yet flexible and sophisticated scheduling capabilities. You can:

•Schedule based on specific dates. You do this by entering each date you want something to run. Specific dates provides you with the ability to create custom calendars.

•Schedule on a daily basis. This allows you to run something daily or every n days. For example, you might want to run something every 3 days.

•Schedule on a weekly basis. This allows you to run something on a weekly basis or every n weeks. For example, you might want to run something every other week (that is, every 2 weeks).

•Schedule on a monthly basis. This is the most sophisticated option. It allows you to either run something a day (e.g., day 17) of every n months, or run something a specific day (e.g., the first Sunday) of every n months.

•With any of the Scheduling options you can include and exclude dates. If you select Specific Dates, you are not allowed to exclude dates.

Step 1: Define the Schedule

Go to the Schedule Properties window by right-clicking the Schedule node in the tree view and select the New Schedule menu item. You create a Schedule by entering a Name, Description, Enabled checkbox, and optionally the Recurring information and Duration information. If you want something to run more than once within a day use the Recurring Options button to display the recurring options dialog.  For example, you may want something to run starting at 2pm and ending at 5pm and it should be started every 5 minutes.

Note:  The recurring option will restart the object every n minutes if the object has run to completion. The Executive Server reschedules the object to run at the next recurring time after it completes. The next run time is calculated based on the Recurring configuration. This can be set to reschedule from the Start time or the Completed time. The Executive Server will not start multiple copies of the object if it has not completed processing. It allows the object to run past the End Time, but it will not restart the object after the End Time occurs.

If you want to specify the duration of a Schedule (that is, when it should start and stop), enter information under the Duration tab. Select the Calendar button adjacent to the Start Date to select a date when the Schedule should start. Select the Calendar button adjacent to the End Date to select a date when the Schedule should stop.

Step 2: Add the Schedule

After you have completed entering in the necessary information select the Apply button to add the Schedule. You will notice that the Next run date/time indicates the next day and time the Schedule will occur (that is, any object with the Schedule assigned to it will be processed by the Executive Server).

Note:  A Schedule is not used unless it has been assigned to one or more objects (Operations, Steps or Jobs) and it is Enabled.