Running Task Plans
You can run a task plan:
- manually, using the property tab toolbar button Start Task Plan.
- automatically at a scheduled date and time, using the Scheduled check box and related Schedule section.
- by linking it to an application action. When the user clicks something in the application, such as a button or a data row, the task plan runs.
Task Plan Properties
For information about the properties toolbar, and about the sections Parent Details, Analysis Models, Description and Audit Summary, see Common Properties. We recommend you always add a Description that explains the purpose of the item you are creating.
For a full list of all the PhixFlow property tabs and windows, see Properties, Windows, Menus and Toolbars.
. The property tab toolbar includes the Start Task Plan button. Click this to manually run the task plan.Basic Settings
Field | Description |
---|---|
Name | The name of the task plan. |
Enabled | Error rendering macro 'excerpt-include' : No link could be created for '_check_box_ticked'. to indicate the task plan configuration is complete and it can be run.Untick to prevent the task plan being run. For example, during maintenance, you may not want the task plan to run at the scheduled time. |
Scheduled | Error rendering macro 'excerpt-include' : No link could be created for '_check_box_ticked'. to add a Schedule section to the properties, where you can configure the day and time that the task plan will run. Untick for task plans that you want to run manually. |
Suspend on Failure | Error rendering macro 'excerpt-include' : No link could be created for '_check_box_ticked'. to automatically tick the Suspended checkbox if running the task plan generates an error message.Untick so that a task plan can report errors without preventing the next run. |
Suspended | Error rendering macro 'excerpt-include' : No link could be created for '_check_box_ticked'. prevents the next run of the task plan. PhixFlow automatically ticks this box if the task plan generated an error message on its previous run. This means the task plan will not run again until you have:
Untick indicates the task plan can run as no errors were reported in the previous run. |
Tasks
A list of tasks in the task plan; see Task. To add a task, click and select the type of task you want to add; see Types of Task.
Schedule
This section is displayed when Basic Settings → Scheduled is ticked. Specify the day and time on which the task plan runs. In the fields, you can enter:
- an explicit value, for example, 6
- a range, for example, 9-12
- a repeating group, for example, 5/10. This is equivalent to 5,15,25,35 etc.
- a list of single values, ranges or repeating groups. For example, 1,3-5,10,20/5
- a wild card *, meaning all values.
Note: You cannot use a wild card in the Seconds field.
The Schedule section has fields for Day of Month and Day of Week . These fields are mutually exclusive. Use on to specify a day, and enter a ?
to indicate no value is specified in the other.
Field | Description |
---|---|
Seconds | Enter the seconds part of the scheduled time, for example, 0-59. |
Minutes | Enter the minutes part of the scheduled time, for example, 0-59. |
Hours | Enter the hours part of the scheduled time, for example, 0-23. |
Day of Month | Enter the day of the scheduled date. You can enter:
|
Month | Enter the month of the scheduled date. You can enter the months as:
The month short names must be in block capital letters. |
Day of Week | Enter the day of the scheduled date. You can enter:
|
Year | Enter the year of the scheduled date, for example, 2020. You can specify a range of years, for example, 1970-2099. |
Send By Email
You can set up an automated email to be sent with the results of a task plan run.
Emails are generated in an outbound queue and are sent by a separate email demon process. If the demon cannot send the emails immediately, for example, because the email server is down, the email demon process will try to re-send periodically until either it succeeds or until a timeout period has passed.
Field | Description |
---|---|
Email From | Enter the email address from which the generated email will appear to be sent. |
Subject Expression | Enter a PhixFlow Expression to create the email subject. Use the internal variables _errors, _warnings, _messages, _suspended and _taskPlan. |
Message Expression | Enter a PhixFlow Expression to create the message body for the email. Use the internal variables _errors, _warnings, _messages, _suspended and _taskPlan. |
Notification | This grid contains a list of the users who will be notified with the results of the task plan. This section has a toolbar with standard buttons and Roles. The grid contains a list of user groups assigned to this role. To add a user group to the list:
To remove user groups from the role, use the toolbar button Delete. This section contains the additional button - this will bring up the list of users in PhixFlow. Drags users into this list to add them as an email recipient. Doing this will add the users with a blank notification rule, which means that the users will get an email every time this task plan runs. Edit the users in the list to update the notification rule, or add users manually using the button. For each user notification rule configure the following settings: |
Notification
A list of the users that will be notified with the results of the task plan.
This section contains the additional button - this will bring up the list of users in PhixFlow. Drags users into this list to add them as an email recipient.
Doing this will add the users with a blank notification rule, which means that the users will get an email every time this task plan runs. Edit the users in the list to update the notification rule, or add users manually using the button. For each user notification rule configure the following settings:
Field | Description |
---|---|
User | Select a user configured in PhixFlow from the drop down list. |
Email As | Choose one of:
|
Expression | An Expression which governs whether the recipient will receive the email generated by the Task Plan on completion. The internal variables _errors, _warnings, _messages and _suspended can be used in the User Notification Expression. In particular, the _suspended variable can be used to send an email to a recipient only if a Task in the Task Plan failed - leading to the Task Plan being suspended. While a Task Plan is suspended, no further emails will be sent even if the Task Plan is scheduled to run. Further, using the _errors variable, this expression can be set up so that a recipient is sent an email only if there are more than a certain number of error messages. |