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Access: WAE Coordinated Maintenance > Maintenance > Blackout Windows tab, +Add Blackout Window link
A blackout window is a time period reserved for having no events. You may, for instance, want to black out a time period for when traffic is at its highest or when personnel are on vacation. You can also set recurring blackout windows. One common use case would be to prevent the scheduling of events during mandated network change moratoriums.
When the application looks for available event time slots, it skips the blackout windows.
When scheduling an event, you are warned if there are overlapping blackout windows; however, you have the option to override the warning and schedule the event anyway.
Before saving a blackout window, a list of scheduled events that occur entirely or partially within the blackout window appears. If you save a blackout window when there is an overlapping scheduled event, the event status changes to Pending. Such events require re-evaluation and often require editing their time slot in order to successfully reschedule them.
The workflow for adding a blackout window is as follows. Once a blackout has been created, you can view overlapping events by clicking the eye icon or you can delete the blackout by clicking the trash can icon.
Step 1 Select the Maintenance > Blackout Windows tab.
Step 2 Click the +Add Blackout Window link (top right).
Step 3 Enter a name to identify the blackout window. It is a best practice to uniquely name blackout windows for easy identification in the table. If two blackout windows have exactly the same time slots, then they must be uniquely named.
Step 4 Optional: Enter a description. For instance, this description can be used as a reminder of the blackout window’s purpose, or you can use this area to communicate with other users.
Step 5 Either enter an exact start day and time, or select it from the calendar. Enter the duration interval in hours 1-24. If you want a blackout to occur all day, start it at 00:00 and set the interval to 24.
Step 6 If this is a recurring event, select the Recurring option and then specify the recurrence interval. These intervals are set to occur every 1-10 days, weeks, months, or years.
Example: If you set the start time to Dec 15 at 7:00 AM for a duration of 2 hours, and if you set the blackout to reoccur every 3 months, the first three blackouts would be Dec 15, March 15, and June 15, all starting at 7:00 AM and lasting for 2 hours.
Step 8 Read the Overlapping Events list to determine if there are scheduled events during the configured blackout window. If there are, either click the Back button to reschedule a different blackout time, or save the blackout window.