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. For example:
- application designers or system administrators can automatically update data in applications
- data modelers can run analysis on models or specific streams
- administrators can clear old information from the PhixFlow system, by archiving data from:
- stream sets
- processing logs
- performance statistics.
Use the task plan properties tab to configure a task plan. Set the options and add individual Tasks.
You can run a task plan:
- manually, using the 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 a button or item in the application, the task plan runs.
When a task plan runs, the listed 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.
See Also
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.
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.
|
| 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.
|
| Suspend on Failure | If ticked, the Suspended flag will be set to true if any error messages are generated by the task plan during execution. |
| Suspended | If the field Suspend on Failure is ticked, this box will be ticked by the system if any error messages are generated when the task plan is executed. This indicates that there is a problem which should be fixed before the Task Plan is run again. The next time the task plan runs, if this flag is still ticked, it will simply generate a one line error message in the log file stating that it cannot run as it has been suspended. To un-suspend the task plan, untick the field. |
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 at 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
You cannot use a wild card in the Seconds field.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Seconds | Seconds element of the scheduled date/time, e.g. 0-59. |
| Minutes | Minutes element of the scheduled date/time e.g. 0-59. |
| Hours | Hours element of the scheduled date/time, e.g. 0-23. |
| Day of Month | Day of Month element of the scheduled date/time, e.g. 1-31. Day of Month can be specified relative to the end of the month e.g. 'L', the last day of the month, or 'L-2', two days before the last day of the month. A day of month followed by a 'W' means the nearest week-day to that day in the same month e.g. '15W' means if the 15th falls on a Saturday the task plan will run on the preceding Friday, and if it falls on a Sunday it will be moved to the following Monday, '1W' means the first week-day of the month, and 'LW' means the last week-day in the month. Day of Week and Day of Month are mutually exclusive. One must be set to '?' (meaning no value specified), and the other defines the days that this Task Plan runs on. |
| Month | Month element of the scheduled date/time, e.g. 1-12 Month can also be specified as short names e.g. JAN,OCT-DEC |
| Day of Week | Day of week element of the scheduled date/time, e.g. 1-7. The week starts on Sunday. So Sunday = 1, Monday = 2, etc. Day of Week can also be specified as short names e.g. MON,WED-FRI A day of week name or number followed by an 'L' means the last day of week in the month e.g. 'FRIL' means the last Friday, '2L' means the last Monday. A day of week name or number followed by a hash ('#') and a number means the Nth day of week in the month e.g. '2#2' means the 2nd Monday in the month, 'FRI#5' means the 5th Friday in the month - if there is no 5th Friday in the month, that is equivalent to specifying no day of week. If the '#' character is used, there can only be one expression in the day-of-week field, so "3#1,6#3" is not valid, since there are two expressions. Day of Week and Day of Month are mutually exclusive. One must be set to '?' (meaning no value specified), and the other defines the days that this Task Plan runs on |
| Year | Year element of the scheduled date/time, e.g. 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 | 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 of the email. Use the internal variables _errors, _warnings, _messages, _suspended and _taskPlan. |
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. |