Processes and Scheduling

Processes pull everything together (Distribution Lists, Email Templates, Tasks) and allows you to schedule the set as desired.

From the processes screen you can create a process, give it distribution lists to email on success and failure, view the next and last run dates, view logs, manage the schedule, view the schedule, and manage the tasks associated with the process.

The first thing needed is the basic process information which consists of a name, distribution lists, and if the process is enabled or not. Next you need to apply tasks to the process. Tasks can appear as many times as you wish on a process and you may order them. This is accomplished using drag and drop on the Tasks tab. Managing the schedule is a bit complicated.

Scheduling

You can schedule processes to run on the Manage Schedules tab of the Process detail screen. The left pane of the window displays current schedules, while the right pane displays an edit screen for the currently selected schedule.

There are four types of schedules; Only Once, Daily, Weekly, and Monthly. Each of these types shares advanced settings that we will touch on in a bit. Some types have their own settings specific to the type that will also be explored.

Each schedule has a Start Date Time that is used to work a schedule from.

Advanced Settings

Before exploring the types, the advanced settings should be explained.

Recurring a Task
You can set any task to repeat during one run on an interval for so long. The format for this is: “Repeat Every HH:mm” “For a duration of HH:mm”. This will take a determined run and repeat it throughout a day. This is useful for recurring processes that run daily.

Expiration
The “Expires On” option allows a user to expire a schedule at a given time. This is very useful if you know a process will need to end on a certain date, but do not have to worry about turning it off on that day.

Enabling
Each schedule can be enabled or disabled using the “Enabled” checkbox.

Types of Schedules

Only Once Schedules
These schedules are set to run only once in the future.

Daily
Daily schedules are schedules you want to run on a daily or semi daily basis. There is only one specific setting for this schedule type.

Recur Every X Days - You can tell the Daily schedule to recur every so many days. Set it to 2 if you want it to run every other day, 1 if you want it to run each day, etc.

Weekly
Weekly schedules are used for running a process each week at the same time.

Recur Every X Weeks - You can choose to skip every other week, or run each week with this option

Days of the Week - You can select the days of the week you wish to run your process with this option.

Monthly
Monthly schedules have many more options for determining how you want to run a process on a monthly regularity.

Months to Run - You can choose the months you wish to run your process. This enables a user to choose a yearly, quarterly, etc schedule.

Days - You can choose the days of the month you wish to run a process. If you wish to run a process on the first of every month, that is simple enough. If you want to run a process on the last day of every month, you can choose the 31st. If the 31st does not exist in a month, it will be run on the last day of the month.

Weeks of the Month - This allows a user to choose specific weeks and days of weeks to run a process. We offer the user the ability to run a process in the First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Last weeks of each month. These are calculated from the day of the week that the first falls on. If the 1st of the month falls on a Wednesday, the first week of the month is Tuesday through Wednesday. If we choose the Last week in a month and that month only has 4 weeks, then the Last will be run on the fourth week. You can also choose the days of the week to run a process on these weeks.

With all of the options provided to create a schedule, along with the ability to apply multiple schedules to one process, you should be able to mix and match schedules to create a master schedule that works in any way you need it to for your process.