Monitoring Schedules

The Schedule Monitor provides detailed information on the progress of the Schedule and of the executions of its sub tasks. It is available as soon as a Schedule has started and allows you to modify some parameters in the Schedule object definition, most of the properties of the tasks and to add tasks at runtime. You can monitor any Schedule that you are authorized to work with. As an operator, you use it to check the progress of the Schedules that you are responsible for and to analyze why something went wrong. As a developer and object designer, you execute objects after defining them. You use the task monitor to check whether they behave as expected.

Notes:

During the execution of a Schedule, its Monitor is dynamic. By default, it refreshes every 60 seconds to provide the latest information on the status of its tasks. If necessary, you can change the refresh interval in your user settings, see Refresh Interval.
You can change some of the Schedule settings and of the properties of its tasks only as long as the Schedule and its tasks are active. These changes apply to that particular execution. If you want those changes to be permanent, you have to change the Schedule definition. As soon as the Schedule has finished, the original settings apply again.
The Schedule Monitor is available as long as the Schedule remains in the Tasks list, also after it has ended.

This page includes the following:

Accessing the Schedule Monitor

You can access the Schedule Monitor from the following spaces in the system:

Process Assembly perspective.
Process Monitoring perspective.
My Catalog perspective.
Dashboards perspective.
Global Search dropdown list.

Right-click the Schedule object or task and select Last Monitor (Process Assembly and Global Search list) or Open Monitor (Process Monitoring, Dashboards and My Catalog).

Overview of the Schedule Monitor

Schedule Caption

The caption of the Schedule monitor page shows the name of the Schedule and its run ID.

Switching Between Read-Only and Edit Modes

When you open the Schedule monitor, the Schedule is in read-only mode. To change the properties either in the Schedule or in any of its tasks, you must first click the Modify button. The execution is stopped and the Schedule changes to edit mode. After making your changes, you must switch to the read-only mode by clicking on this button again.

This button is not available in Client 0.

For more information, see

Schedule Functions

Click the Modify Schedule button to open the list of functions that are available to the Schedule. They affect the current execution of the Schedule and depend on its status. See also Available Functions Depending on the Task Status.

Task Functions

The toolbar provides shortcuts to the most usual task functions. Select a task in the list and click the required button. They are enabled or disabled depending on the status of the task

Go Immediately

It starts processing the task immediately. Tasks that have a Waiting status start as well. It also starts child tasks.
Reset Task

It sets the task to its previous status.

See Example: Scheduling Tasks with Time and Calendar Conditions for an example of how and when to use this function.
Restart

Tasks that have already been executed can be restarted by clicking this button.

Expand the More button to open additional options. It is disabled if no further options are available. For more information, see Working with Tasks.

Tip: For tasks that are Jobs (JOBS), you can access their monitor from here, provided they are not running as part of a Job Group (in which case their task type is C_HOSTG).

Task Details Button

Select a task and click this button to open a pane that provides information about the task properties its current execution. The information varies depending on the type of task.

Task Properties Button

Right-click a task and select Properties or select a task and click this button to open the properties pane on the bottom half of your screen. For more information, see Modifying Tasks in an Active Schedule.

Refresh Button

During the execution of a Schedule, its monitor is dynamic. By default, it refreshes every 60 seconds. If necessary, you can change the refresh interval in your user settings.

Working with the List of Tasks in the Schedule

The tasks contained in a Schedule object are listed in the Monitor sorted by start times. Tasks with the same start time are sorted alphabetically by name. The columns in the Schedule Monitor provide the following information:

Task Name

Name of the task. Not editable.
Type

Abbreviation that indicates the type of task. Not editable.
RunID

Unique identifier assigned to the task upon execution. Not editable.
Status

Current status of the task.
Scheduled Check

Time and date on which the system will check if the task should be started. Not editable.
Next Start Time

Time and date on which the task will presumably be executed. This point in time depends on the period that has been specified in the Schedule and on the defined Calendar conditions.

CALE_LOOK_AHEAD_MAX is displayed here if the calculated start time lies beyond the period that the administrator has defined in the UC_CLIENT_SETTINGS variable. This information is also displayed if a Calendar Event has been assigned to the Schedule that is no longer valid or available. The task switches its status to FAULT_OTHER - Start impossible. Other error in such a case.

To Modify the Start Time
1. Switch to edit mode.
2. Select the task and expand the list on the Modify Schedule button on the toolbar.
3. Select Recalculate next start time. This is especially useful if a calendar that is used in one of the tasks has been changed.
Active

Whether this task is active or not. You can activate and deactivate tasks here.

To Activate or Deactivate Tasks
1. Switch to edit mode.
2. Select or deselect the Active checkbox.
3. Switch to read-only mode and save your changes.
Start Time

Time at which this task will be executed. The default value is the time that has been defined in the Period Turnaround Time field on the Schedule Attributes page. You can change it here:

To Change the Start Time
1. Switch to edit mode.
2. Select the value in the column and type a new time.
3. Switch to read-only mode and save your changes.
Start Offset (days)

This field specifies the number of days that should elapse between the beginning of a period and the activation of the selected task. You use this field in combination with the period duration and turnaround time. You can change it here:

To Change the Start Offset
1. Switch to edit mode.
2. Click on the value in Start Offset (days) to activate this field and either use the arrows or type a new one to change it.
3. Switch to read-only mode and save your changes.
Calendar Conditions Set

A tick indicates that a Calendar Event has been assigned to the task. Calendar Events serve to prevent tasks from being executed at dates that may cause problems. For example:
- The period duration and the task start offset parameters of the Schedule may cause tasks to be executed on dates hat should be avoided.
- A task should be executed only in some of the days that result from the Schedule settings.
Not editable.
Runtime Settings Overriden

When defining executable objects, you specify the parameters to calculate their maximum and minimum runtimes. In case of deviations from these times, you also specify what should happen. This is defined on the object Runtime Page.

In the case of Schedule objects, you can specify that the Schedule runtime settings override the task settings. In this case, a tick is displayed here.

Not editable.
Result Check

A tick indicates that a follow-up action has been defined for the task depending on its status after execution.

Not editable.

You can perform a number of actions on the tasks. Use either the buttons on the toolbar or right-click a task on the list to open the context-menu that contains all available functions. See Working with the Tasks in the Schedule Monitor.

Special Case: A Task Is Still Running After the Period Turnaround

If a task is still running at the time at which the period turnaround takes place, this is how the task and the Schedule behave:

The task continues its execution but the instance of the Schedule that started it has no longer control over it.
The instance of the Schedule that started it ends as usual. Its tasks will be started again with the next period turnaround as defined.
On the list of Tasks in the Process Monitoring perspective you can only see the task that is still executing if you set the flat list view. This is because the Schedule task (and therefore its children) is no longer available on the Tasks list.
You can still access the Schedule that started the task. For this purpose, right-click it and select Activator Executions.
With a period turnaround, a new Schedule monitor instance is created. The monitor of the previous instance is frozen, that is, if a task is still Active, its status will not be updated once it ends.