This page is for data modellers, application designers and system administrators. It explains how to create a task plan, which will run one or more tasks.

Overview

When working with data, applications and IT systems, there are routine processes that you need to run. PhixFlow makes it easy for you to set up and manage these processes using task plans, to which you add tasks.

See Also



Running Task Plans

You can run a task plan:
  • manually, using the property tab toolbar button .
  • 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.
When a task plan runs, its tasks are run in the order they are listed.You can optionally set up a list of users who will receive an email about the outcome of running the task plan.

Task Plan Properties

. The property tab toolbar includes the  button. Click this to manually run the task plan.

Basic Settings

FieldDescription
NameThe name of the task plan.
Enabled

 to indicate the task plan configuration is complete and it can be run.

 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

 to add a Schedule section to the properties, where you can configure the day and time that the task plan will run. 

 for task plans that you want to run manually. 

Suspend on Failure

 to automatically tick the Suspended checkbox if running the task plan generates an error message.

 so that a task plan can report errors without preventing the next run.

Suspended

 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:

  • resolved the problem that caused the error message; see the log file for details.
  • and unticked the Suspend checkbox.

 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.


FieldDescription
SecondsEnter the seconds part of the scheduled time, for example, 0-59.
MinutesEnter the minutes part of the scheduled time, for example, 0-59.
HoursEnter the hours part of the scheduled time, for example, 0-23.
Day of Month

Enter the day of the scheduled date. You can enter:

  • number to specify the date. The day number can be 1 to 31
    Note: A date of 31 will not run the task plan in months that only have 28, 29 or 30 days.
    • for example, 20 runs the task on the 20th day of the month
  • number-number to specify a date range.
    • for example, 1-31 runs the task plan every day.
  • L to specify the last day of the month
  • L-number to specify a day relative to the last day of the month
    • for example, L-2 runs the task plan two days before the last day of the month
  • numberW to specify the nearest week day to a date, for example: 
    • 1W runs the task plan on the first week-day of the month
    • 15W, where the 15th is a:
      • Saturday, runs the task plan on Friday 14th
      • Sunday, runs the task plan on Monday 16th
    • 1W runs the task plan on the first week-day of the month
  • LW runs the task plan on the last week-day of the month
  • ? to indicate no value is specified here when you use the Day of Week field instead.
Month

Enter the month of the scheduled date. You can enter the months as:

  • a number or number range. Numbers are 1 to 12. For example:
    • 5 runs the task plan in May
    • 1-12 runs the task plan every month
  • its short name, for example, JAN,MAY, JUN, DEC. You can specify a range of months, for example JAN-MAR.

The month short names must be in block capital letters.


Day of Week

Enter the day of the scheduled date. You can enter:

  • number to specify the day as number from 1 to 7. where
    • 1 is Sunday
    • 2 is Monday
    • 6 is Friday
    • 7 is Saturday
    • for example, 20 runs the task on the 20th day of the month
  • number-number to specify a range of days, for example:
    • 2-6 runs the task plan every week-day
  • the short day name, for example MON, TUE, FRI, SUN. You can specify a range of days, for example:
    • MON-FRI runs the task plan on week-days.
  • L,as a suffix, to specify the last week-day in the month, for example:
    • FRIL runs the task plan on the last Friday of the month
    • 2L runs the task plan on the last Monday of the month
  • #number,as a suffix, to specify one Nth weekday in the month. For example:
    • FRI#1 runs the task plan on the first Friday of the month
    • 4#2 runs the task plan on a Wednesday, when it is the 2nd Wednesday of the month
    • FRI#5 runs the task plan on the fifth Friday of the month. If there is no fifth Friday, the task plan does not run.
    • 2#1, 1#3 is not valid, as it specifies more than one value.
  • ? to indicate no value is specified here when you use the Day of Month field instead.
YearEnter 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.

FieldDescription
Email FromEnter 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 .

The grid contains a list of user groups assigned to this role. To add a user group to the list:

  1. Click  to list all the user groups in the repository.
  2. Drag user groups into this list to add them to the role. 

To remove user groups from the role, use the toolbar button .


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:

FieldDescription
UserSelect a user configured in PhixFlow from the drop down list.
Email As

Choose one of:

  • To
  • Cc
  • Bcc
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.