The schedule determines which operations are run and when they are run.
Note: Daemon calls are normally set after the EOD but before the start of the business day.
What do you want to do?
The list of available operations is derived from the menus in the system. You can use the menu editor to change the status of a menu option so that it can be scheduled to run in the Timed Operations schedule.
Module for available options: By selecting a module from the Module control's drop-down
list, or entering the module's mnemonic directly in the Module control, you cause the Available Operations grid to be refreshed with that module's available operations.
Buttons:
Add: Moves an operation, derived from the system's menus, from the Available Operations grid to the Scheduled Operations grid. Select the operation from the Available Operations grid and click Add. The Scheduled Operations Editor (Scheduling information form) is displayed. Clicking OK adds the operation. Add is also clicked when inserting an operation between two existing ones on the right-hand side - for example: when you drill into the End-of-day list.
(See: Advancing the Nominal Ledger Period in the End of Day, for an example.)
Remove: Removes an operation from the schedule. Select the operation from the Scheduled Operations grid and click Remove. The Scheduled Operations Editor (Scheduling information form) is displayed. Clicking Delete removes this option from the schedule, and it re-appears in the Available Operations grid.
Note: An operation that does not re-appear in the Available Operations grid after removal may have been out of use for some time.
This left-hand grid displays all available operations from the system's menus, one module at a time. Selecting a line in the Available Operations grid highlights that line, making it available for scheduling.
Module: Short name (mnemonic) of the module to which the operation belongs
Option: Option code for the operation
Description: Description of the operation
Ex: Exclusive mode for this operation
Freq: Default frequency of the operation. Values are:
- R for Request
- I for Interval
- D for Daily
- W for Weekly
- M for Monthly
- T for Today
- Y for Yearly
See the Scheduling Information form section for more information.
Scheduled Options by Frequency:
The following option buttons on the right-hand side of the form relate to the Scheduled Operations Grid below them. They permit different views of scheduled operations:
OPTION BUTTONS:
Interval: Displays all scheduled interval type operations
Daily: Displays all scheduled daily type operations
Weekly: Displays all scheduled weekly type operations
All from now: Displays all types of operations in time sequence from the current time
Monthly: Displays all scheduled monthly type operations
Yearly: Displays all scheduled yearly type operations
Request: Displays all scheduled operations that have a Request type. These operations will never be run by the Agent, but may be reports run on the previous day. They are for information only.
Today only: Displays all scheduled once only (today)
SCHEDULED OPERATIONS GRID:
This right-hand grid displays scheduled operations.
You can edit an existing option by double-clicking on it in the grid. If the operation is the first operation in a chain, the background of that grid row will be highlighted, and double-clicking on that row takes you into the chain editor.
Right-clicking an item shows a menu with the following items:
SCHEDULED OPERATIONS GRID RIGHT-CLICK MENU:
Edit: Displays the Scheduling Information dialog and allows editing of the scheduled operation. This is the same as double-clicking the row in the grid. This is not available on chain operations.
Edit chain: This will enter the chain editor. This is only available on chain operations.
Insert chain: This will enter the chain editor, starting at the time of the selected operation, but with no chained operations. This is not available on chain operations.
The fields shown in the grid are:
Time: Current start-time of the operation
Mod: Mnemonic of the module to which the operation belongs
Option: Option mnemonic for the operation
Description: Description of the operation
Co: Company for which the operation has been scheduled to run
Note: A company of ** indicates that it will run for all the companies in the option's module.
Ex: Exclusive mode for this operation. Values are: N or blank for None, C for Company, and A for All.
An operation that is exclusive for all will not allow other operations to be run until that operation has completed.
A company-exclusive operation will only allow the same operation for other companies to be run at the same time as itself. All other operations will wait for all that operation for all companies to complete before running.
There are also system-only exclusive types: B, the Beginning of a chain, and L, a member of a chain (List). Both of these act like company-exclusive operations.
Freq: The frequency of the operation. This determines how often the operation is run. Values are: R for Request; I for Interval; D for Daily; W for Weekly; M for Monthly; T for Once only (today), and Y for Yearly. See the Scheduling Information Form section for more information.
Link: Link Operations that are at the start of a chain show their next operation here.
To schedule an operation, click on the left-hand (Available Operations) grid to select the relevant available operation. This highlights the text of that row. Select the Frequency type for the operation from the option buttons above the right-hand (Scheduled Operations) grid.
If there are no scheduled operations of the type required, you can click Add to schedule the required operation. This takes you into the Scheduled Operations Editor (Scheduling Information form) for final selection.
If there are existing operations, click the closest in time to the required time before clicking Add. The scheduled operations editor is displayed.
To remove an operation from the schedule, select it from the Scheduled Operations grid and click Remove. The scheduled operations editor (Scheduling information form) is displayed. Clicking Delete removes this option from the schedule, and it re-appears in the Available Operations grid.
Note: An operation that does not re-appear in the Available Operations grid after removal may have been out of use for some time.
This form shows the details about the scheduled operation.
Buttons:
OK: Saves any changes made to the operation
Note: This is not available if the editor has been entered through the Remove button of the Timed Operations Schedule form.
Cancel: Cancels any changes
Delete: Removes this option from the schedule
Note: This button is only displayed if the editor has been entered through the Remove button of the Timed Operations Schedule form.
Help: Displays help on the current program in your default company browser
There are three tabs on this form:
TABS:
On the main form, are the following controls. All are not editable unless otherwise stated:
Module identifier: The short name (mnemonic) of the module this operation belongs to, and its description
Operation code: The code of the operation. Every menu item in the Autoline system has an operation code. This field is used to identify the operation.
Description: The operation description
Note: This field can only be edited when a report is being batched.
On the Timing tab, are the following controls:
Company number: Select a company from the list, if a chained operation is being edited, this will be filled.
An operation can be scheduled to run just for a particular company, or for all companies. ** means that the operation should be scheduled to run for all companies.
Frequency: The frequency determines how often an operation is run. A frequency of R means that the operation is not going to be run. When selecting a frequency of I (interval), the operation is run every day every [interval] number of minutes when the time is between the start- and the end time. For example, if an operation, with frequency I, is scheduled to run at 10.00 and end at 12.00 with an interval of 30 minutes, the option will be run at 10.00, 10.30, 11.00, 11.30, and 12.00, every day.
Tip: You can select the
When to run: Select the day of the week if the frequency is weekly, or 0 to run on the defined End of Week. If the frequency is monthly, the value typed in is the day of the month (up to the 28th) on which the operation is to be run, or 0 to run on the defined End of Month. If the frequency is yearly, the operation will run on the defined End of Year only.
Spooler: The spooler on which to place any printed output is entered here. If this is left blank, the printed output will be placed on the module/company record's Agent spooler, or, if that is blank, the Agent spooler defined in the system controls.
Tip: You can select the
Time: The time at which the operation will run
Note: This control does not appear for Interval frequency operations.
Start time: If the operation is an interval operation, this is the time at which the operation will run for the first time.
Note: The control does not appear for any other frequencies.
End at: For Interval frequency operations, this is the last time at which this operation shall run.
Note: The control does not appear for any other frequencies.
Interval: For Interval frequency operations, this is the number of minutes, between which, the operation will be run. This value has a minimum of 10.
Retry time: If an operation fails to start because there is another operation running requiring either Company or All exclusivity, the operation will start within this time (in minutes). This value has a maximum of 59 minutes, or half the interval if an interval frequency operation.
On the Flags tab, are the following controls:
Exclusivity:
Exclusive mode: Click the
N (None): Indicates that the operation can be run at the same time as other operations
C (Company): Indicates that the operation can be run at the same time as the same operation for any other companies, but it will prevent any other operations from being started
A (All): indicates that no other scheduled operations may be run at the same time as this operation
Flags:
Operations may have up to three flags used to modify the behaviour of an operation. The use of any flags would have to be coded in the program being called, and the documentation of that program would indicate the use of such flags.
Parameters:
Operations may have up to three parameters. As with the flags above, these have to be coded in the programs being called.
Linked option:
These controls only appear in chained operations, and indicate the next module and option code to be called by the chain.
The reports only section contains the following, non-editable fields, which only apply to batched reports:
Reports only:
RG report ID: The report generator report identifier
Letter format: If the output type of the report is using format stationery (L) or letter writer (W), this contains the identifier of the letter format used.
Output device: The output type of this report
Report prompts (1-10):
These are the answers to the prompts at batch time of the report.
A series of operations can be linked.
A chain is started by right-clicking an entry in the Scheduled Operations grid of the Timed Operations Schedule form and selecting the Insert chain option from the displayed options menu. The Edit NEW chain form is displayed.
An existing chain may be edited by double-clicking on an operation that starts a chain (indicated by the highlighted background) in the Scheduled Operations grid of the Timed Operations Schedule form, or by right-clicking it and selecting the Edit chain option from the displayed options menu.
This form is very similar in layout and operation to the main scheduler editor's form, except that there are option buttons to select the frequency and a control (defaulting to ** for All) to select the company for which to run the operation.
To insert an operation into an existing chain, select the operation in the right-hand Scheduled Operations grid, before which you wish to run the new operation, and either select the Available operation from the left-hand grid and click Add, or double-click the desired available operation.
The currently selected Available- and Scheduled operations are indicated by a highlighted text colour in the grids.
Editing of scheduled operations is performed by double-clicking the operation in the right-hand grid; deletion by either right-clicking, or by selecting it with a single click and clicking Remove. Deletion requires confirmation.
One tab of the system controls is reserved for Timed operations (Agent) control:
To access the Timed Operations tab:
Select the Advanced system admin option from the System Utilities main menu, and click OK.
The ADP MENU is displayed.
Note: There is currently no help file for this menu.
Select the option System controls, and click OK.
The GB system controls form is displayed.
Select the Timed operations tab.
It consists of the following controls:
Agent printer:
Default printer, used if both the scheduled operation record's spooler field and the module/company's Agent spooler field are blank.
Maximum concurrent processes: The maximum number of Agent processes that can be run at any one time. If this value is reached, subsequent processes will wait until another process has completed before starting.
Tip: This should be set to a suitable value dependent on the available memory and processing power of the system on which Autoline is resident.
End of Week day: Used for creating a calendar for the Timed Operations agent, using the Add/modify agent dates option in the Timed operations menu. This populates a calendar with the normal day of week an End of week runs on. The numbers used are: 1 = Monday through to 7 = Sunday.
End of Period date: Also used for creating calendar dates for the Timed Operations Agent, using the Add/modify agent dates option in the Timed operations menu. This populates a calendar with the normal day of month an end of period is run. This can be any day between between 1 and 28. Two special values are reserved for this:
A value of 98 indicates that the End of Month should run on the end of each Nominal Ledger period, as read from the dates table of the defined Nominal Ledger, and the End of Year will run on the end of the Nominal Ledger year.
A value of 99 indicates that the End of Month will run on the end of each calendar month, and the End of Year will run on the 31st of December.
NL company for period end: This is the defined NL company to be read if the Period end day is set to 98. This is not editable if the Period end date is not set to 98, and must be filled if it is set to 98.
Days to skip: Enter the days of the week not to run Timed Operations (1 = Monday)
Days to keep events: Number of days for which to keep the events log file before consolidation
Virtual midnight: Enter here the alternative time to establish the correct day to run End-of-Week, End-of-Month, End-of-Period operations if start-time is set after midnight.
