Restarting Tasks

You can Restart active, blocked and ended tasks. To restart a task, right-click on it and select Modify > Restart. You can restart a task as often as you need. If you select the Restart option for an already restarted task, you are actually restarting the original task and not the restarted one.

Starting and restarting tasks are two different things. This topic describes the differences, and it provides instructions on how to configure restart and release restarted tasks.​

This page includes the following:

Starting vs Restarting

  • Restarts use the real date and the logical date of the reference execution.

    • If Calendar conditions are defined in the object, the logical date has an impact on them. Since it is retrieved from the original execution, the task checks the Calendar conditions of the original execution.
    • The real date has the effect that the task reacts as it is executed at the real date. It is also retrieved from the reference execution. It is used for calculating the earliest start time of Workflow tasks. The effect is that restarted Workflows do not have waiting times because of the specified earliest start time, which has already been met when the original execution took place.
    • A Restart of a task in a Workflow does not re-run the preconditions for that task as the preconditions have already been fulfilled.

  • When restarting a task it is not necessary to execute the entire script again. You can specify a position within it from which reprocessing should start. You do his on Restart dialog.

    Alternatively, you can use the :RESTART statement to set the restart point and avoid repeating already successful processing steps.

  • Objects that are processed by an Agent always run on the computer on which the original execution has been started. The relevant information is retrieved from the execution data and, therefore, it is irrelevant if the object has been modified or if Agent Groups are used.

    In the case of Workflows the following applies:

    • If you restart the parent Workflow, the Agents that belong to an Agent Group are retrieved anew.
    • If you restart a child Workflow, the Agents are assumed from the statistics if the option Workflow tasks of the same Agent Group should use the same Agent is activated on the Workflow Attributes Page
    • For details on the general processing order of Workflow tasks, see Workflow Logic

Tip: Avoid repeating restarted tasks, as these are difficult to trace.

Restarting a task is possible from

  • the Explorer in the Process Assembly perspective.
  • the Tasks table in the Process Monitoring perspective.
  • the Last Monitor also in the Process Monitoring perspective. This is available for Workflows only.

Status Icons of Restarted Tasks

The status of a tasks is clearly identifiable through its label (Active, Waiting-Sync, ENDED_NOT_OK, and so forth) and its icon. Each status has a color-coded icon. For details about the task statuses and their icons, see Task Status.

If you restart a task several times, a new task is added to the list of Tasks with each restart. To help you distinguish the original task from the ones resulting from the restart actions, the status icons display additional indicators. This table describes them:

Icon Description  

Tasks with status ENDED_NOT_OK - aborted have a red icon with a white cross.

 

Screeshot of the task status as dispalyed in the Status column in the Task list (Process Monitoring perspective). The task has status ENDED_CANCEL; this status is indicated by a white cross on a red background. Since the task has been restarted more than once, an overlay is now visible over the white/red icon. The overlay shows two brwon arrows on a white background.

If we restart an ENDED_NOT_OK - aborted task, its status icon gets an overlay displaying a white arrow on a brown background. This overlay indicates that this is the original task and that it has been restarted.

  

As a result of restarting the task, a new task is now available. The new task has its own status icon indicating its execution stage (in this case, ENDED_NOT_OK) with a new overlay, two white arrows on a gray background. It indicates that this is the result of a restart action. If you keep restarting the tasks, the new task gets this overlay.

 

If you restart the task again, the most recent restart gets a different overlay, two white arrows on a brown background. The previous task (the task that resulted from the first restart) changes its overlay to white arrows on a gray background.

 

If you keep restarting the task, the latest one gets the white arrows on a brown background overlay () while all the previously restarted tasks, the intermediate tasks, get the white arrows on gray background ().

Configuring and Automating Restarts

To Restart a Task

  1. Do one of the following:

    • In the Process Monitoring perspective: Right-click the task and select Restart.
    • In the Process Assembly perspective: Right-click the object and select Execution Options, Restart.

  2. The Restart dialog is displayed.
    Define the restart options described below.

  3. Click Restart.

  4. If the Activate attributes dialog option is activated, a dialog pops up where you can enter specific attribute settings for this run.

    If any of the other test options is activated, a message opens prompting you to confirm that you want to execute the task after the script has been generated.

To Configure a Restart

Configure the following settings in the Restart dialog when you restart a task.

  1. Configure the Parameters section.

    • Reference RunID

      RunID of the execution that should be repeated. By default this field is populated with the RunID either of the highlighted task or of the original execution.

      If you need the original RunID later on, you can see it on the details of the task.

    • Restart Point

      Point in the script from which the process will be restarted. If you leave this field empty, the entire script will be reprocessed.

      Note: Use the :RESTART script statement to define restart points. For more information, see Script Elements for Restarting Tasks.

    • Keep Start Type

      The restarted task retains the same start type as the original. For example, if the object is assigned to a group, restarting takes place within the group.

    • Wait for Manual Release

      Before being actually executed, tasks go through the following phases: Activation, Generation and Transfer. Activate this checkbox if you want the task to go through them but stop after transferring because you want to control when to execute it.

      See To Release the Task Manually.

    • Queue

      You can assign a particular queue for this execution, which can be different to the one in the object's definition. If you leave this field empty, the object queue is used.

  2. Configure the Test Options section.

    • Activate Attributes Dialog

      When you define an object type, you specify the general attributes that will always apply to objects with this type. In some cases, however, it might be necessary to change specific settings for a particular run of an object without modifying its general definitions.

      If you activate this option, before the task is executed a dialog pops up displaying the attributes that can be changed for this particular run. These values apply only to this execution.

    • Display in activation report

      If you activate an option in this section, the script is processed overruling the Generate Task at / Activation time or Runtime settings defined for the object in the Attributes Page.

      The activation report includes both the script statements and the content of all involved Include objects. In the case of jobs, also the job includes such as Header and Trailer.

      • Generated JCL

        Displays the JCL in the report.

      • Original Script

        Displays the script in the report.

      • Modifications of Variables

        When testing your object definitions, you may want to modify your variables and check the results before actually executing them. Activate this option if you want those changes to be displayed in the activation report.

      • Modifications of Attributes

        When testing your object definitions, you may want to modify their attributes and check the results before actually executing them. Activate this option if you want those changes to be displayed in the activation report.

To Release the Task Manually

You have two ways of releasing the task manually:

  • From the Process Assembly perspective:

    1. Right-click the object and, depending of the type of object, select one of the following:

      • Monitoring, Last Monitor
      • Monitoring, Show in Process Monitoring
    2. Expand the Modify... button and select Release manually. Before releasing the task you can modify its parameters. These changes apply to the current execution only.

  • From the Process Monitoring perspective:

    1. In the Tasks list, search for the task using either the Filter options (see Filtering Tasks) or the Global Search.
    2. Right-click the task and select Release manually.

For more information, see Release Manually.

To Define and Configure a Restart by Script

Use script statements and functions to automate restarts in your scripts. For more information, see Script Elements for Restarting Tasks.

See also: