Schedules

The Schedules subsection enables you to manage the schedules on this Management Console. A schedule denotes a selection of robots and plans for running them. Running the schedule means running the selected robots (in parallel or sequence) optionally executing pre- and post-run scripts or robots.

Important When selecting the interval between schedule runs, note that if a schedule run time comes when it is still running, this schedule will not start.

The following information is displayed for each schedule in the list of schedules. The information is presented in columns. Some of the columns are hidden by default, and can be shown by clicking the down arrow on the column header, and selecting the columns.

Column

Description

Active

When Active, the schedule runs as planned. You may want to make a schedule inactive for several reasons, such as:

  • Because the function performed by the schedule currently is not needed.

  • Because errors have been found in the robots and you don't want the schedule to run before you have fixed these errors.

  • Because you want to trigger the schedule manually each time it should run. This may be appropriate for some robots and schedules, for example for preparation or clean-up tasks.

Name

Name of the schedule.

Project Name

Name of the project that the schedule belongs to (useful when the 'All' project is selected).

Job Count

Combination of total and active jobs. If all jobs are active it will simply list the number of active jobs; if 2 of 3 jobs are active it will list 2 (3).

Total Jobs (hidden by default)

Total number of jobs in the schedule. (To see the jobs, edit the schedule as described below.)

Active Jobs (hidden by default)

Number of active jobs in the schedule. (To see the jobs, edit the schedule as described below.)

Next Run

Time when the schedule is planned to run next.

Previous Run

Time when the schedule was last run.

Interval

Planned interval between two consecutive runs of the schedule.

Total Runs

How many times the schedule has been run.

Created By (hidden by default)

Name of the user that created this schedule.

Modified By (hidden by default)

Name of the user that last modified this schedule.

Commit Message

Summary describing the commit.

Revision Number

Number of the schedule revision.

Cluster (hidden by default)

Cluster that the schedule executes on.

Delete

Click to delete the schedule.

Edit

Click to edit the schedule or to view more details on a specific schedule. You can also edit a schedule by double-clicking the row.

Run/Stop

Click to manually run the schedule. This is especially useful for inactive schedules.

If the schedule is already running, it will be stopped. That is, all its running robots are stopped as quickly as possible. The schedule is displayed as "running" until all its robots stop executing.

Errors

Number of schedule errors during the last run of the schedule. Schedule errors do not include robot errors. Schedule errors prevent the schedule from running, such as a deleted cluster or errors in pre- or post-processing.

Note To see Errors (and Robot Errors), make sure the log database is set up in the Management Console settings (see Settings->Log Database) and that database logging is enabled on the RoboServers via the logging cluster settings. For more information, see Log View.

Robot Errors

Number of robot errors that occurred in robots run by this schedule.

To create a new schedule, click Add in the upper left corner. If the current project selection is All, when clicking the Add button, you have to select an actual project before you can add a new schedule.

To copy an existing schedule, right click a schedule and select Create Copy.

Clicking in the "Edit" column or double-clicking anywhere in the row for an existing schedule brings up the "Edit Schedule" dialog box, which is useful for changing the schedule or viewing all details about it.

The dialog box contains two tabs: "Basic" and "Advanced". The Basic tab contains everything necessary for setting up a normal schedule. On the Advanced tab you can configure runtime constraints.

The following information can be configured for schedules:

Field

Description

Name

Name of the schedule.

Active

Active schedule is marked with a check mark.

Simple / Cron

Used to select between two different ways of defining the time plan for a schedule.

Every

(Available only for Simple schedules.)

Desired time interval between two consecutive runs of the schedule. This is entered as an integral number with a unit, such as "1 minute" or "3 hours".

Pattern

(Available only for Cron schedules.)

Pattern defining when the schedule should be run. See Cron Schedule for details of the format.

Pre Processing

Name of a script or robot that will be run as part of the schedule, before any other robots are run. Note that you must perform the following steps if you want to run an application on the RoboServer computer or a pre processing script on the Management Console computer.

  • To run an application on the RoboServer computer:

    1. Enable the "Allow File System and Command Line Access" option in the RoboServer settings. These settings are found in the installation folder or from the start menu on Windows.

    2. Insert an open step in your robot that opens the application you want to run.

  • To run a pre processing script on the Management Console computer before starting the schedule:

    1. Close the Management Console.

    2. Open the /WEB-INF/Configuration.xml file.

    3. Find the line <property name="allowScriptExecution" value="false"> and change the value to true.

    4. Restart the web server and start the Management Console.

    The script file can be a windows .cmd or a Linux .sh file. The field must contain the absolute location of the file, such as c:\scripts\truncatedb.cmd. You must remember to copy the scripts when importing projects or restoring backups.

    For a robot, you may use runrobot: TutorialCase1 to run the TutorialCase1 robot from the repository.

Post Processing

Name of a script or robot to run as part of the schedule, after all other robots have been run. See pre-processing above for details.

Run on Cluster

Name of the cluster to run this schedule on.

Commit Message

Summary describing the commit.

Robots (to the right)

See the table with a list of jobs below.

Execution Time Limit (Advanced tab)

Set the maximum execution time for each robot in the schedule. When a robot has executed for this period of time, the server will stop it, and an error will be logged. The default value is -1, which means the time is not limited.

Extracted Values Limit (Advanced tab)

Select the maximum number of values each robot may output. If the robot outputs more than this number of values, the server will stop it, and an error will be logged. The default value is -1, which means the number is not limited.

Run Jobs Sequentially (Advanced tab)

If checked, the robots will execute in the order listed on the Basic tab.

Use Email Notification (Advanced tab)

Check to receive an email whenever a robot fails. If several robots in a schedule fail, you will get one email for each robot each time the schedule runs.

Email notification works only if you configure an SMTP server in the Options Tab and enter the desired email addresses in the following field.

Email Addresses (Advanced tab)

Comma-separated list of email addresses to which notifications are sent. The first listed address is used as both a sender and receiver address. The field can contain up to 255 characters. If you exceed the number of characters in this field, the schedule is not saved.

On the right-hand side you see the list of jobs that will run when the schedule triggers.

Column

Description

Job Name

Display name of the job. This is selected when the job is created.

Active

When Active, the job runs when the schedule is run. You may want to make a single job within a schedule inactive for several reasons, such as:

  • Because the function performed by the job currently is not needed.

  • Because errors have been found in the robots and you don't want the schedule to run before you have fixed these errors.

  • Because you want to trigger the job manually each time it should run.

Remove

Click to remove the job from this schedule. This will not delete any robots referred to by the jobs.

Edit

Click to edit the job.

To add jobs to the schedule, click Add Job in the upper right-hand corner. This will open a wizard that will take you through the steps of creating a job.

The Help button in the upper right-hand corner of the Schedules tab opens the Management Console help in your browser.

Alternative schedule creation

It is also possible to create a schedule from the Robots Tab. This is done by selecting any number of robots, right-clicking and choosing Create Schedule from the context menu. This opens the New Schedule window with the robots already added.