Because cleanup tasks can be resource intensive and time consuming, in P6 Professional, these tasks are initiated by two background jobs that run on the database server using the background job processes user name:
- SYMON (System Monitor), responsible for running procedures that take less than a few seconds to complete.
- DAMON (Data Monitor), responsible for running procedures that take longer than a few seconds to complete.
Both of these jobs are pre-configured with default settings. Since the default settings are optimal for most environments, you generally do not need to tune them. However, if you need to optimize your background process further, you can use the background job processes user to change the settings to tune the behavior of the background jobs for specific environments.
The background process will:
- Update the settings table with a record each time a job runs.
- Update the settings table with a HeartBeatTime record for both the SYMON and DAMON processes. The background processes regularly refresh the record to indicate that they are still running.
When you initiate background jobs:
- Run the stored procedure INITIALIZE_BACKGROUND_PROCS.
- Locate the logs of background process activity in BPLOGS and SETTINGS tables within the Primavera database.