Using Scheduler Calendars
Overview
In the previous exercise, you created an unscheduled job. In this chapter you will create a scheduled job by creating a calendar, and adding it to the job. Scheduled jobs run on a regular basis according to the dates in their calendar. Some schedules are simple with jobs running every day from Monday through Friday, or on the first day of every month. Others are more involved, with jobs running on irregular accounting periods, holidays or fiscal period offsets.
Enteprise Scheduler uses calendars to define the set of dates on which jobs run. Enteprise Scheduler contains five different methods for creating calendars, depending on the period in which you need your job to repeat. For example, you may need your job to run as needed on a, daily, weekly or monthly basis. Each method addresses a particular period.
This chapter describes how to build four calendars:
-
first wkdy
– A list calendar (as needed) representing the first workday of each week.
-
work day
– A daily calendar representing Monday through Friday.
-
Fiscal Week End
– A calendar to use when your work week ends on a Thursday.
-
Fiscal Quarter End
– A calendar for scheduling on the last business day of a quarter.
You will then schedule a job using the
work day
calendar, and confirm that it is scheduled properly.
Note To complete the exercises in this tutorial, you need to:
Install Enteprise Scheduler in the default directory Scheduler (or the examples in this tutorial will not work properly).
Select the Super User option in your User definition.
Configure a default agent .
Create and have available the work day calendar
Building the First Workday Calendar
In this exercise, you will build a list calendar called
first wkdy
which refers to the first workday in every week. In the
List Calendar
dialog, you choose each day that the job is to be scheduled.
To build a List calendar:
Step 1 From the
Navigator
pane, select
Definitions>Calendars
to display the
Calendars
pane.
Step 2 Click the
Add
button on the Scheduler toolbar or right-click a calendar and select
Add Calendar>List
from the context menu to display the
List Calendar Definition
dialog.
Step 3 In the
Calendar Name
field, type
first wkdy
.
Step 4 In the calendar view, double-click the dates that represent Monday of each week for the current month.
All selected dates appear under the
Selected Dates
section to the right of the calendar.
Note To add scheduling dates to other months, use the inner right arrow buttons. To add scheduling dates to other years, use the outer right arrow buttons.
Step 5 Click
OK
after you have completed your selections.
Figure 13-1 Calendars View Showing First Wkdy
Congratulations, you just created your first list calendar!
You can create a calendar for any dates you specify. This calendar can be associated with a job from within the
Job Definition
dialog, but will not be used in any future tutorial exercises.
Building the Work Day Calendar
Now you will create the
work day
daily calendar to use for scheduling a job. The
work day
daily calendar schedules your job to run on each weekday.
To build a Work Day calendar:
Step 1 From the
Navigator
pane, select
Definitions>Calendars
to display the
Calendars
pane.
Step 2 Click the
Add
button on the Enterprise Scheduler toolbar or right-click a calendar and select
Add Calendar>Daily
from the context menu to display the
List Calendar Definition
dialog.
Step 3 In the
Calendar Name
field, type
Work Day
.
Notice the
Public
option in the lower left corner of the dialog. Selecting this option makes the calendar available to all Enteprise Scheduler users.
We will be accepting the defaults in the
Details
tab. The defaults automatically set the calendar to generate dates for Monday through Friday of each week.
Step 4 Click the
Forecast
tab to generate the calendar.
This tab displays all the dates calculated from the
Details
tab. The
Forecast
tab is viewed the same way as in the
List Calendar
dialog, when the calendar
first wkday
was entered. You can add individual dates from this tab by double-clicking in the calendar view on the dates you want to change. You can delete dates by selecting the date in
Selected Dates
and either right-clicking the date to select
Delete
or clicking the
Delete
button. The forecast displays a four-year time window, but the calendar extends indefinitely.
Note This step can take from a few seconds to a minute, depending on your system’s configuration.
Step 5 Click
OK
.
The Calendars view displays the two calendars you created. By default, the rows of the display are sorted alphabetically according to calendar name (the
Name
column). You can also sort by other columns by clicking the column name. For example, if you click the
Owner
name at the top of the
Owner
column, calendars are grouped by their creator. If you click the
Modified
label at the top of the
Modified
column, your newest calendars are grouped together.
Building the Fiscal Week End Calendar
We will create the
Fiscal Week End
calendar to use for scheduling a job to run when your fiscal week ends on Thursday evening. If Thursday is a holiday, the job will execute on Wednesday evening, through the use of a condition definition.
To build a Fiscal Week End calendar:
Step 1 From the
Activities
menu, select the
System Configuration
option.
Figure 13-2 System Configuration Dialog, Master Tab
Step 2 In the
Week Begins
list, select
Friday
. This sets your fiscal week to start on Friday and end on Thursday.
Step 3 Click
OK
.
Step 4 Click
OK
when the
Warning
dialog displays. This warning displays whenever you change the calendar week starting day.
Step 5 From the
Navigator
pane, select
Definitions>Calendars
to display the
Calendars
pane.
Step 6 Click the
Add
button on the Enterprise Scheduler toolbar or right-click a calendar and select
Add Calendar>Subset
from the context menu to display the
Calendar Subset Definition
dialog.
Step 7 In the
Calendar Name
field, enter
Fiscal Week End
.
Step 8 In the
Occurrence
list, select
Every
.
Step 9 In the
Calendar
list, select
Friday
.
Step 10 In the
Time Frame
list, select
Week
.
Step 11 (Optional) Multiple fiscal calendars can be defined for Enteprise Scheduler. You can choose to base a calendar definition on a fiscal year, rather than a standard January- through-December calendar year.
Making no selection in the
Based on Fiscal
list results in the use of a standard calendar. For this exercise, leave the field empty.
Step 12 Now, we need to set a condition to let Enteprise Scheduler know what to do if a holiday occurs on Thursday. Click the
Conditions
tab.
Step 13 Click
Add
to display the
Condition
dialog.
Figure 13-3 Condition Dialog
Step 14 From the
If conflicts with calendar
list, select the
Holidays
calendar.
Step 15 From the
Take action
list, select
Previous Calendar
.
Step 16 The
Calendar
field defines which calendar to use and how many days in the past to go. The default is
0
days. Select a value of
1
, and in the adjacent list, select
Workdays
.
Step 17 Click
OK
.
The condition now displays in the
Conditions
view.
Figure 13-4 Calendar Subset Definition Dialog, Conditions Tab
Now if a holiday falls on Friday of the
Fiscal Week End
, Enteprise Scheduler will schedule the
Fiscal Week End
calendar for Wednesday.
Step 18 Click the
Forecast
tab () to verify the dates Enteprise Scheduler has set.
Step 19 Click
OK
. The
Fiscal Week End
calendar now appears in the
Calendars
view.
Alternate Method of Creating a Calendar
In most cases, there is more than one way to define a calendar such as our
Fiscal Week End
. The following is an example of another way to create the
Fiscal Week End
calendar. We will call this calendar
Fiscal Week Ending
, so that the results of both exercises will be visible.
To create a calendar:
Step 1 From the
Navigator
pane, select
Definitions>Calendars
to display the
Calendars
pane.
Step 2 Click the
Add
button on the Enterprise Scheduler toolbar or right-click a calendar and select
Add Calendar>Weekly
from the context menu to display the
Weekly Calendar Definition
dialog.
Step 3 In the
Calendar Name
field, enter
Fiscal Week Ending
.
Step 4 Click the
Details
tab. In the
Include the following days
section, de-select
Monday
,
Tuesday
,
Wednesday
and
Thursday
options.
Figure 13-5 Weekly Calendar Definition Dialog
Step 5 Click the
Conditions
tab, and then click
Add
.
Step 6 In the
If conflicts with calendar
list, select the
Holidays US
calendar.
Step 7 In the
Take action
list, select
Previous Calendar
.
Step 8 The
Calendar
field defines which calendar to use and how many days in the past to go. The default is
0
days. Select a value of
1
, and in the adjacent list, select
Workdays
.
Step 9 Click
OK
.
Step 10 Click
Forecast
to verify the dates that Enteprise Scheduler has chosen.
Step 11 Click
OK
in the
Weekly Calendar Definition
dialog.
Step 12 Now, both the
Fiscal Week End
and the
Fiscal Week Ending
calendars are visible in the
Calendars
view.
Building the Quarter End Calendars
We will create the
Fiscal Quarter End
and
Calendar Quarter End
calendars to use for scheduling jobs to run when your fiscal quarter ends on the last work day of the quarter. If the quarter ends on a holiday, the calendar should execute on the previous work day. For this exercise, we will consider the fiscal year to run from November to October.
Fiscal Quarter End
We first have to define a fiscal calendar period, to be used in documenting the
Fiscal Quarter End
calendar. Many companies run production from more than one fiscal calendar period.
To define a Fiscal calendar period:
Step 1 From the
Navigator
pane, select
Definitions>Fiscal Calendars
to display the
Fiscal
Calendars
pane.
Step 2 Click the
Add
button on the Enterprise Scheduler toolbar or right-click a calendar and select
Add Fiscal Calendar
from the context menu to display the
Fiscal Calendar Definition
dialog.
Figure 13-6 Fiscal Calendar Definition Dialog
Step 3 In the
Fiscal Calendar Name
field, enter
Corporate Fiscal Year
.
Step 4 In the
Starting Month
list, select
November
. Keep the default values for the remaining text fields.
Step 5 Click
OK
.
Step 6 From the
Navigator
pane, select
Definitions>Calendars
to display the
Calendars
pane.
Step 7 Click the
Add
button on the Enterprise Scheduler toolbar or right-click a calendar and select
Add Calendar>Subset
from the context menu to display the
Calendar Subset Definition
dialog.
Step 8 In the
Calendar Name
field, enter
Fiscal Quarter End
.
Step 9 If not already selected, click the
Details
tab.
Step 10 From the
Occurrence
list, select
Last
.
Step 11 From the
Calendar
list, select
Workdays US
.
Step 12 From the
Time Frame
list, select
Quarter
.
Step 13 In the
Based on Fiscal
list, select
Corporate Fiscal Year
.
Leave the
Adjust by ... days
field at
0
.
Step 14 We have completed the definition for the
Fiscal Quarter End
calendar. Click the
Forecast
tab to verify the dates that will be selected for production execution and then click
OK
.
The calendar definitions are ready to be used in production.
Calendar Quarter End
To create a quarter end calendar that will work on the last business day of the calendar quarter, where the fiscal year starts in January, just repeat Steps 6 through 12 above with the following exceptions:
-
In
Step 8
, change the Calendar Name to
Calendar Quarter End
.
-
In
Step 12
, leave the
Based on Fiscal
field blank.
You have created two quarterly calendars, one based on a fiscal year calendar and one based on a standard calendar year starting in January.
Scheduling the Unix Test 1 Job with a Calendar
Now, return to the
Unix Test 1
job and schedule it using the
work day
calendar.
To schedule the Report job using the word day calendar:
Step 1 From the
Navigator
pane, select
Definitions>Jobs
to display the
Jobs
pane.
Step 2 Right-click the
Unix Test 1
job and select
Edit Job/Group
from the context menu to display the
Job Definition
dialog.
Step 3 Click the
Schedule
tab on the
Job Definition
dialog.
Step 4 In the
Calendar Name
list, select
work day
.
Step 5 To view the dates in the calendar, click the
Forecast
button and then click
OK
.
Step 6 Click
OK
again on the
Job Definition
dialog to display the
Effective Date
dialog.
The
Effective Date
dialog displays asking you when the job should enter the production schedule. The dates represent the current span of the production schedule.
Step 7 Click
OK
to accept the default (today).
Another occurrence of the
Unix Test 1
job enters the production schedule.
Step 8 From the
Navigator
pane, select
Operations>Job Activity
to display the
Job Activity
pane.
The job runs according to the
work day
calendar. It will run today (unless you are running this tutorial on a weekend). Your window may appear slightly different.
You will also see the previous occurrence of the
Unix Test 1
job that was added to the schedule manually in the previous chapter. The job occurrence has been renamed
Unix Test 1(2)
to reflect the first occurrence of the same job (
Unix Test 1(1)
) ran earlier.