News

2005 Archive

Job Scheduler v2.4 released

Date Posted: 20/05/05

Version 2.4 of the Halcyon Job Scheduler has been released today. It includes the following enhancements:

Scheduling

When the schedule times are specified as an interval between a range of times, the end time can now be earlier than the start time. This means that the end time is assumed to refer to the following day.

Conditions

There is now the option to only consider the most recent or next occurrence of an event when resolving a condition, instead of considering all occurrences within a specified time frame. This allows some types of condition to be resolved earlier in order to avoid waiting for a second occurrence that the end user knows cannot happen.

There is a new option to specify what happens when a job times out waiting for conditions. Previously, the group was cancelled but there is now an option has been added allowing you to skip that job and continue with the rest of the group.

There is also the option to halt with an inquiry and wait for a reply. This new option makes it easier to continue a group if a job fails, as it allows a sequential group to be used where previously you would need a concurrent group with more complex conditions.

When resolving a condition, the user previously specified that events up to x hours prior should be considered. A new option provides the ability to specify that only events occurring since a specified set time should be considered.

User Notes

Users can now have documentation associated with a Job Scheduler group. The notes can be edited using option 14=Notes from the Work with Groups program, or using the EDTNOTE command. The notes can be stored in a source file or in an IFS stream file. If a stream file is used, the directory can be shared which allows the notes to be accessed using PC applications (e.g. Microsoft Word etc).

Event Schedule

Event Schedules allow a group to be started when specified conditions become true or a specified event occurs, instead of when a certain time is reached. There is a new Work with Event Status display which lists all groups that are set up as event schedules, and shows their current status and when they last occurred. It also allows groups to be suspended or released.

Job Summary

The Work with Groups program has a new Jobs Summary mode which lists all the jobs in a group on one line each. This provides a fast method of adding, updating, deleting or re-ordering jobs. Any job type can be maintained using the summary screen and all the mandatory settings can be defined.

Days Allowed to Run

The Days Allowed to Run field permitted the user to restrict which days of the week a job could run on, in effect refining the group schedule at job level. This feature has been expanded from a simple Y/N for each day of the week into much more comprehensive options including relative days, calendar reference, and user program options.

*INVOKE Job Type

There is a new *INVOKE job type. When the job runs, it invokes another group, on either the local or a remote system, and waits for it to complete.

*REF Job Type

There is a new *REF job type which gets most of its settings from another job that it references. If you have a job that has to be run in many groups, you can define it once, and just *REF it from each group. This makes future maintenance much easier.

Custom Look-Up

The Custom Look-Up feature allows the user to write their own look-up program and register it with Job Scheduler, so that when they use F17 on the Command field in Job Scheduler, it calls their own look-up. A working example is shipped with Job Scheduler.

Output Schedule Command

The new Output Schedule (OUTSCH) command produces similar output to the Print Schedule (PRTSCH) command, except that instead of sending the output to a spooled file for printing, it is sent to either a database file or a stream file. If a database file is used, the output can be queried using query tools. If a stream file is used the output is in CSV format, and if the directory is shared, it can be loaded into PC packages such as Microsoft Excel.