JobScheduler - Tutorial 3 - Running an Order Using the Run Time Parameter

Introduction & Requirements

This tutorial follows on directly from JobScheduler - Tutorial 2 - Editing a Simple Job with JOE and will show how a Run Time parameter can be configured to start the Order. This is also a first step towards learning to using the JobScheduler's Schedule function.

It is assumed that before you start to work through this tutorial you have already configured the 'Hello World' job chain with its two jobs as described in the previous tutorials.

Note that the other tutorials in this series are:

• JobScheduler - Tutorials - Introduction and Requirements
• JobScheduler - Tutorial 1 - Running a simple job using the JOC Cockpit
• JobScheduler - Tutorial 2 - Editing a Simple Job with JOE
• JobScheduler - Tutorial 3 - Running an Order Using the Run Time Parameter
• JobScheduler - Tutorial 4 - Configuring and Running a JITL Job
• JobScheduler - Tutorial 5 - The YADE JITL Job - Configuring and running file transfer jobs 
• JobScheduler - Tutorial 6 - Configuring and Running Standalone Jobs

Setting the Days When the Order is to Run

1.  Start by selecting the hello_world_order in JOE as shown here:
   
   
   
2. Now click on the triangle to the left of the order in the Scheduler Elements pane to show the Parameter and Run Time elements.
   
   
   
3. Still in the Scheduler Elements pane, open the Run Time element and click on the Any Weekday element.
   This will open a Weekday form as shown in the diagram below:
   
   
   
4. Now click on the Every Day button as shown in the screen shot above, which will specify that the JobScheduler is to start the order every day of the week.
   It does this by creating a new Group with all seven days of the week and showing this Group in the central field of the form as shown below:
   
   
   
5. This seven-day Group can be edited - for example, to reduce the number of days to the normal five working days - by selecting the group as shown in the next screenshot and then marking the days to be removed.
   
   
   
6. The Apply Group button is then used to overwrite the original seven day group shown in the central field with the new one.
   

Setting the Time of Day at which the Order is to run

For the purpose of this tutorial, it would be useful to let the order run at intervals of an hour, starting at 12:00 and ending at 24:00.

1. In the Scheduler Elements pane, click on the 1 2 3 4 5 element, representing the Monday to Friday group just configured. This will open the Periods form, which is used to set the times of the day when the Order is to run.
   
   
   
2. Click on the New Period button as shown in the screenshot above, to activate the Time Slot and Start Time fields (the field background color changes from gray to white) in the upper part of the form:
   
   
   
3. To restrict the time during which our Order will run set the Begin Time in the Time Slot area of the form to 12:00 and the End Time to 24:00.
   Next, set the type of start time in the Start Time part of the form to Interval start/start, which will be more regular than Interval end/start as shown in the next screenshot:
   
   
   
4. Now set the interval in the Start Time part of the form to 01:00:00 and then click on the Apply Period button to note the Period, which will now be entered in the Periods list in the lower part of the form as shown below:
   
   
   
5. As a final step in JOE, save the run time information using the Save Configuration button at the top of JOE.

Using JOC to Observe the Running of the Order

1. Switch back to JOC where the Start Time you have just specified in JOE should be shown in green text ("Next start: .....") as can be seen in the screen shot below.
   (You can go back to Step 3 above and alter the Start Time if you have to wait an inconvenient time for the order to start.)
   
   
   
2. As already described in the previous tutorial, the first "Hello World" job of the order will be processed almost instantaneously
   However, the second job will take a few seconds and during processing will be marked as shown in the screen shot below:
   
   
3. After processing of the order has been completed it will be added to JOC's Order History pane as shown, together with its start time of 14:40:00 and other information:
   
   
   
4. Clicking on the Order ID, will now open the Order protocol in a new browser window
   This log contains the protocols for both jobs with the "Hello World" output being listed before the task for the first job ends and the second job starts.
   The results of the Pings from the second job can be seen in the middle of the screen shot.
   Near to the foot of the screen shot is the information that the next start of the order will be on the 27th January (the next day) at the same time of 14:00.
   
   The same information will now also be shown in JOC's main window in green.

Suspending the Order

If you leave your JobScheduler running then this order will be run every day at the same time.

1. The simplest way to stop the order from being repeated is to use the Suspend Order function, which can be found in JOC's Order Menu button as shown in the next screenshot.