Scheduling Jobs

You must manually schedule jobs to run in a live production environment. eaDirect does not automatically schedule any jobs. The frequency with which you choose to run a job depends on both the job type and your organization's presentment needs. Consider all jobs and system events in planning your schedule.

You can schedule a job to run a simple weekly or monthly basis, or establish a more complex timetable. Review the available scheduling parameters and carefully choose the combination of options that yield the particular schedule you need.

You can change a job schedule anytime, except while the job is processing.

Warning: If you try to save schedule changes while a job is running in the production queue (job status says "Processing"), eaDirect ignores the new scheduling parameters.

Here is a general idea of how often you might want to run various jobs:

Job Type	How Often to Run
Indexer	Schedule the Indexer job on a regular basis that corresponds with the generation of a new input data file, such as a monthly account statement. You can schedule an Indexer job to rerun frequently over a certain period of time to allow for the expected arrival of a data input file at an unspecific point. (Only when the Scanner task finds a data input file does the job proceed.)
EmailNotification	Schedule EmailNotification to briefly lag the Indexer job so you can verify its completion before notifying users by email that a statement is available.
Purge Apps	Schedule Purge Apps to run as often as necessary to clear space on your database server.
Purge Logs	Schedule Purge Logs to run as often as necessary to clear space on your database server.
HTML Output; XML Output	Schedule an HTML Output or XML Output job on a regular basis that corresponds with the generation of a new input data file, such as a monthly account statement. (HTML or XML output users only). You can schedule HTML Output or XML Output to rerun frequently over a certain period of time to allow for the expected arrival of a data input file at an unspecific point. (The Scanner task runs as part of both job types, and only when it finds a data input file does the job proceed.)
Report	Schedule the Report job to run after the Indexer job (Reporting feature users only).
JIT Report Collector	Schedule the JIT Report Collector when a number of JIT reports have been created, which depends on your system and JIT configuration (Reporting feature users only).
Hierarchy Assignment; Hierarchy Registration	Schedule only as needed (Hierarchy Manager feature users only).
XML Loader	Schedule the XML Loader job on a regular basis that corresponds with the generation of a new input data file, such as a monthly account statement (XML input file users only). You can schedule XML Loader to rerun frequently over a certain period of time to allow for the expected arrival of a data input file at an unspecific point. (Only when the Scanner task finds a data input file does the job proceed.)

The Run Now button

Click the Run Now button on the Main Console to run just one instance of the job immediately, overriding the scheduling parameters (except concurrency parameters; if you saved the schedule to run multiple occurrences of a job, the Run Now button uses multiple occurrences instead of one).

Running jobs concurrently (multiple instances)

eaDirect lets you configure the Scheduler to enable multiple instances of an application job to run in parallel. By default, eaDirect runs all jobs sequentially, requiring one job instance to complete before another the job starts.

If a job processes large or multiple input files, repeating the job sequentially may not allow enough time to complete the job before another input file appeared in the input directory. Running jobs in parallel enables you to leverage machine power to process a large amount of data in less time.

To run instances of a job concurrently, you must configure the maximum number of concurrent job instances to allow for each job (5, 10, 15, or 20) in the job schedule.

Concurrency is available with thread-safe jobs only; PurgeApp and PurgeLogs are not thread-safe and can run only one occurrence at a time.

The Command Center lets you monitor and manage the individual job instances to keep your production environment running efficiently.

To set or change a job schedule:

1. At the eaDirect Command Center, locate the job you want to schedule or reschedule and click its status in the Next Run column. The Schedule screen appears. (If you just completed configuring a job, the Schedule screen appears automatically.)

2. Specify a valid start date for the schedule to take effect. Click Popup Calendar to select dates quickly.

3. Specify the schedule window parameters and any repeating parameters, if necessary. These options are described in the following table. To clear the screen to reenter all parameters, click Clear Schedule.

Job Schedule Parameters
Field	Use to…
Schedule Date
Schedule Date	Specify the date the job schedule goes into effect
Schedule Window
Start Time	Time of day (hour and minutes) to run the job
Try Once	Run the job once on the date and time specified only
Try every … minutes until … time of day	Rerun the job at the specified interval (in minutes) until the end time
Repeating
Do not repeat this event	Run the job as specified in the previous fields and do not repeat it
Repeat every …	Run the job on the daily or weekly frequency specified: every, every other, every third, or every fourth day, on the selected day of week, all week days, or on both weekend days
Repeat on day … of the month every …	Run the job on the numeric day of the month specified, on every month, every other month, or every 3, 4, 6, or 12 months
Forever	Run the schedule continuously (no end date)
Until …	Run the schedule up until the end date, then stop
Concurrency
Do not run multiple job instances: only one at a time	Run only one instance of the job at one time.
Run maximum number of (5) concurrent job instances	Run multiple occurrences of the job at one time (concurrently). Specify the maximum number of instances to allow; click the $image\ebx_-1666458197.gif$ drop-down box and choose 5, 10, 15, or 20.

4. When finished setting the schedule, click Save Schedule. eaDirect saves this schedule and adds the job to the production queue, overriding any scheduling parameters you set for a single execution of the job. To run the job immediately, click Run Now. (You can also choose this button on the Main Console. The Run Now button overrides scheduling parameters except concurrency parameters; if you saved the schedule to run multiple occurrences of a job, the Run Now button uses multiple occurrences instead of one).

Tip: To start a job, list jobs, or view schedules from a command line, see the SDK documentation about implementing the com.edocs.pwc.cli API package.