Editing Jobstreams: Setting the Start Job

You can manually set a job or jobs that come somewhere after the AAI calculated start job, which is the earliest upstream predecessor for the target job, as the start job(s). When you define a start job or jobs, monitoring begins only when that job begins. You can manually set a start job and override the system-calculated one from two places:

Understanding Setting Start Jobs

As a jobstream administrator, the first thing that you do when you add a jobstream is to identify its target job. Then, AAI automatically discovers the target job's upstream dependencies (its predecessors) and builds the actual jobstream back until its very first job(s). A jobstream can have many upstream branches that converge at some point; this means that it can have many starting points. The default jobstream starting points are the first jobs in each branch. AAI shows all these dependency chains by default. However, there are situations in which you may not want AAI to monitor all the earliest predecessors of the target job.

Example:

You monitor a batch process that starts every evening at 9 pm. This process has a condition on a predecessor that runs every morning at 6 am. This predecessor is of no relevance for the batch process, so you do not want to include it in the monitor. You can use the Start Job feature to set a hard start on the jobstream run. In our example, you would set the first job in the batch process as the jobstream start job, rather than the job at 6 am.

When you set start jobs you do not modify the jobstream in any way. This function only changes the portion of the jobstream that AAI visualizes in the various monitoring views; it does not affect the SLA, AAI calculations, predictions and so on. By setting start jobs you ensure that the monitoring charts are not clogged by unnecessary, long-running dependencies. However, the entire jobstream (also the jobs that run BEFORE the start jobs that you have set) are visible on the runtime view (the Gantt chart).

Sometimes there are several jobs that are different, possible entry points to the part of the system-defined jobstream run that you want to be monitored. Therefore, you can specify as many start jobs for a jobstream as it makes sense.

1. In the Edit Jobstream [jobstream name] dialog, click the Start Jobs tab.

   Any currently defined start jobs are listed under Jobs that can start a jobstream run.

2. To select one or more start jobs, click Add Jobs in the upper right.

3. Search the jobs in the current jobstream to find and select start jobs.

   1. In the Find Jobs dropdown, select a search criteria from one of the following:

      • Where jobs have a start time: Select this to get a list of any jobs in the jobstream have a specific start time defined.

      • Where job names start with, Where job names end with, or Where job names contain: Select one of these and enter the portion of the job name of the jobs your are looking for.

      Note:

      The job name search is case-sensitive.

      This is a simple filter and might not be able to show all the jobs that your want. That is not a problem. You can build your list of start jobs incrementally, adding jobs that match one criteria and then returning to add jobs based on another criteria, as described the next steps.

   2. Click Find.

      To help you understand the role and impact of the listed jobs, each job is listed with the following information: 

      • Name: The name of the job as defined in its scheduler.

      • Parentage: The fully qualified path from the root object all the way down to a particular job. It lets you uniquely identify the job. This information is extremely important for schedulers that allow jobs to run more than once in multiple contexts (from different places and in multiple jobstreams). The parentage identifies the exact instance of the job. IWS, ESP, Tidal and Automic Automation allow jobs to run multiple times in different contexts. AutoSys does not allow this, therefore, in AutoSys parent and parentage are always the same.

      • Type: The type of job. This is scheduler-specific.

      • Date Time Condition: If the job has a fixed start time, this is the date and time for the start.

   3. Select one or more jobs that you want to be able to trigger the monitoring of the executions of this jobstream.

   4. Click Add at the bottom of the dialog.

      You return to the initial list view, where the selected jobs are now listed.

4. To add more jobs, click Add Jobs and repeat the previous steps.

5. To remove a job from the list of Jobs that can start a jobstream run, select the checkbox next to the job, then click Remove Job in the upper right, where appears when you selected a job.

6. When you are done with the jobstream Start Jobs tab, click Save.

AAI rebuilds the jobstream with the new start jobs that you defined. Not only are the run statistics calculated without the jobs that run before the start job, you will no longer see those jobs on the Gantt view.

Setting the Start Job from the Gantt View

On the Gantt view, you have a good visual representation of the flow or a jobstream run and you can see the run times on the Jobs Table. From this view, you can better notice whether the current start job is the best place to start monitoring the core process. You can confirm your analysis by switching to previous runs to determine whether they show the same pattern. Then you can set the appropriate start job directly from that view, while you can see the exact job that would be a better start job to reflect the run times of the core process.

You can set one or more start jobs for a jobstream directly from the Gantt view of one of its runs. If more than one job could be a potential starting point for the beginning of the core process that you want to monitor, you can set them all as start jobs in one action. The steps for setting one start job and for setting multiple start jobs from the Gantt view follow.

To set one Start Job from the Gantt view

To set just one job as a start job from the Gantt view, do the following:

1. Start on the Gantt view of any run for the jobstream.

2. Locate the job in the Jobstream Tree.

3. Click the three-dot, vertical ellipses () to the right of the job name to open the job action menu, and select Set Job Start.

   Note:

   If you had selected a job that is already defined as start job for the jobstream, the action Remove Start Job appears instead.

   The Edit Jobstream [jobstream name] dialog for the jobstream opens on the Start Jobs tab.

   The job that you selected appears in the list of Jobs that can start a jobstream run, along with any other jobs that were previously defined as possible start jobs.

4. Optionally, modify the list of start jobs.

   • To add other jobs to the list of Jobs that can start a jobstream run, click Add Jobs in the upper right.

   • To remove jobs on the list, click Remove Job in the upper right, where appears when you selected a job.

5. When you are done with the jobstream Start Jobs tab, click Save.

The dialog closes and you see the Gantt view again.

AAI rebuilds the jobstream with the new start jobs that you defined. Not only are the run statistics calculated without the jobs that run before the start job, you will no longer see those jobs on the Gantt view.

To set multiple Start Jobs from the Gantt view

In some processes, more than one job can mark the beginning of the process. To set more than one job as possible start jobs for a jobstream for such a process, do the following:

1. Start on the Gantt view of any run for the jobstream.

2. Select all the jobs that you want to set as possible start jobs.

   1. Locate and select one of the jobs in the Jobstream Tree.

      Checkboxes appear to the left of all the job names in the tree.

   2. Click the checkboxes next to each of the jobs that you want to select.

3. Click the three-dot, vertical ellipses () to the right of the job name of one of the selected jobs to open its job action menu, and select Set Start Job.

   Note:

   If you had selected a job that is already defined as start job for the jobstream, the action Remove Start Job appears instead.

   The Edit [jobstream name] dialog for the jobstream opens on the Start Jobs tab.

   The job that you selected appears in the list of Jobs that can start a jobstream run, along with any other jobs that were previously defined as possible start jobs.

4. Optionally, modify the list of start jobs.

   • To add other jobs to the list of Jobs that can start a jobstream run, click Add Jobs in the upper right.

   • To remove jobs on the list, click Remove Job in the upper right, where appears when you selected a job.

5. When you are done with the jobstream Start Jobs tab, click Save.

The dialog closes and you see the Gantt view again.

AAI rebuilds the jobstream with the new start jobs that you defined. Not only are the run statistics calculated without the jobs that run before the start job, you will no longer see those jobs on the Gantt view.

Trimming a jobstream and setting the start job are two different functions. When you trim a jobstream, you eliminate jobs from the jobstream and, therefore, you actually tell AAI not to collect part of the jobstream data. AAI's analysis, calculations and so forth ignore the excluded jobs because they are no longer part of the jobstream. However, when you define custom start jobs, AAI does collect all the data from all the jobs that are part of the jobstream, also of those that run before the new start jobs.