Monitoring Jobs

This section gives an overview of some of the typical tasks you perform to monitor jobs. Here is an example of the Job Activity panel.

All tasks are performed using the TA Web Client.

Adding or Removing Columns in the Job Activity Pane

To add or remove columns:

  1. Click Operations > Job Activity on the Navigation pane to display the Job Activity pane.

  1. Click View > Preferences on the main menu bar or right-click the Navigation pane and select Preferences from the context menu to display the Preferences dialog.

  2. Click the Columns tab. By default, all columns are used.

    • To remove columns, clear the checkbox to the left of the column name.

    • To include columns, click the checkbox so that a black checkmark appears.

Adding a New Job or Group Occurrence to the Schedule

To add a new job or group occurrence:

  1. Click Operations > Job Activity on the Navigation pane to display the Job Activity pane.

  1. Right-click the job or job group occurrence to add to the production schedule and select Insert Job Into Schedule from the context menu or click the job or job group, and from the Activities main menu, select Insert Job Into Schedule.

  2. Click Yes at the confirmation prompt.

Another occurrence of the selected job or job group is added to today’s production schedule regardless of its calendar dates (if any). If the job is defined to repeat, only one occurrence of the job enters the schedule. Note that a job must have the Unscheduled Allowed option selected in its Job Definition to be added in this manner.

Adjusting Column Widths in the Job Activity Pane

To adjust a column’s width:

  1. Place the cursor on the right vertical border of the column heading. The mouse pointer turns into the separator icon.

  1. Hold down the left mouse button and resize the width.

Deleting Jobs or Groups from the Production Schedule

To remove jobs that have not yet launched from the production schedule:

  1. Click Operations > Job Activity on the Navigation pane to display the Job Activity pane.

  1. Right-click the job or job group occurrence to remove, and from the context menu select Remove Job(s) from Schedule. In the resulting confirmation dialog box, select Yes if you only want to delete the selected job occurrence. If you wish to delete all future scheduled occurrences of the job, select the All option. You can select multiple jobs or job groups simultaneously.

    • To select more than one job or job group that are adjacent to each other, hold down the Shift key and select the first and last jobs.

    • To select more than one job or job group that are not adjacent to each other, hold down the Control key while selecting the desired job occurrences.

  1. Click Yes at the confirmation prompt.

Remove Job(s) from Schedule will remove any pre-launch job occurrence from the schedule, for any date. Only the job occurrence you select is removed. If a job group occurrence is selected, all of the group’s child jobs are removed.

Filtering Jobs in the Job Activity Pane Based on Job Status

To filter a job:

  1. Click Operations > Job Activity on the Navigation pane to display the Job Activity pane.

  1. Click Filter on the TA toolbar or right-click the Navigation pane and select Filter from the context menu to display the Job Filter dialog box. The statuses that are presently displayed are the ones with a check mark.

  1. Click the agent, owner and job statuses to view.

Moving to Different Dates and Times in the Job Activity Pane

You can view job occurrences for past, present or future days. Each job’s retention history value in its job definition determines how far back you can see its job occurrences. The Future Days value in the System Configuration dialog determines how far you can see into the future.

Note: When you are viewing the current day in the Job Activity pane, you may also see jobs from previous dates if those jobs have not yet completed.

To move to different dates and times:

From the Navigation pane, open Operations > Job Activity to display the Job Activity pane.

  • To move backward one day in the production schedule, right-click in the Job Activity pane and choose Prior Day from the context menu.

  • To move forward one day in the production schedule, right-click in the Job Activity pane and choose Next Day from the context menu.

  • To move to today’s date and time, right-click the Job Activity pane and choose Go to Now from the context menu.

  • To move to a job’s graphical start location, right-click the job’s record and choose Go to Job Time from the context menu to display the job’s start time.

Pausing the Production Schedule

You can pause and then resume the production schedule at any time. You can also pause and resume job launching without having any affect on scheduling.

When you pause a production schedule, the master service is stopped and waiting jobs are prevented from running, even if their dependencies are met. Jobs that are already in Active status will continue to run on their respective agents; however, their updated status (for example, Completed Normally) will not be displayed in the Job Activity pane until the master service is restarted.

When you pause job launching, jobs can still be scheduled and calendars compiled, but jobs will not actually launch until job launching is resumed.

To pause the production schedule or job launching:

  1. Click Operations > Job Activity on the Navigation pane to display the Job Activity pane.

  1. Click Pause Scheduler or Pause Job Launching on the Activities main menu.

Rearranging Columns in the Job Activity Pane

To rearrange columns:

  1. Click Operations > Job Activity on the Navigation pane to display the Job Activity pane.

  1. Click Preferences on the View main menu or right-click the Navigation pane and choose Preferences from the context menu to display the Preferences dialog.

  2. Click the Columns tab.

  1. Click the column and click the up or down arrows to arrange the titles into the desired order.

Recreating the Production Schedule

To recreate the production schedule:

  1. Click Operations > Job Activity on the Navigation pane to display the Job Activity pane.

  1. Click Create Schedule on the Activities menu to display the Create Schedule dialog.

  1. Choose the date range for which to create the schedule.

    If you want repeating jobs with no time window to start immediately, rather than after midnight, click the For today’s repeating jobs with no time window, start repeating ASAP option.

    TA searches for all qualified jobs to add to the production schedule for the selected dates.

Note: All job occurrences that were added manually and all records of jobs that ran will be lost. Furthermore, the Create Schedule recreates the schedule at the time you issue the command. This means that jobs whose dependencies have not been met can qualify to run immediately. Use this command with caution.

Refreshing the Job Activity Pane

To refresh:

  1. Click Operations > Job Activity on the Navigation pane to display the Job Activity pane.

  1. Click Refresh on the View main menu.

Resuming the Production Schedule or Job Launching

To resume the production schedule or job launching:

  1. Click Operations > Job Activity on the Navigation pane to display the Job Activity pane.

  1. Click Resume Scheduler or Resume Job Launching on the Activities main menu.

Saving a Job’s Output on the Master

You can view the output of a job after the job finishes running. In order to view the output of a job from the Job Activity pane, you must save the output for the job on the master (this is the default).

To save a job’s output on the master:

  1. Click Definitions > Jobs on the Navigation pane to display the Jobs pane.

  1. Click the job for which to save output.

  1. Click Edit to display the Job Definition dialog box.

  1. Click the Options tab.

  1. Choose Append or Replace in the Save Output option.

  1. Click OK. The next time the job completes, you can view its output from the Job Detail dialog box.

Selecting or Removing All Job Filters in the Job Activity Pane

To choose or remove all job filters:

  1. Click Operations > Job Activity on the Navigation pane to display the Job Activity pane.

  1. Click Filter on the TA toolbar or right-click the Navigation pane and choose Filter from the context menu to display the Job Filter dialog box.

  2. Right-click in the Statuses section and choose Check All or Uncheck All from the context menu.

Setting the Completion Status of a Job

Note: You should only set the completion status of jobs that have already finished running. Setting completion status of a job that is still active, may adversely affect job activity.

To set the completion status:

  1. Click Operations > Job Activity on the Navigation pane to display the Job Activity pane.

  1. Choose the job on which to perform job control.

  1. Right-click the job to open the Job Activity context menu.

  1. Click Set on the Job Control submenu and click the desired job completion status on the Set submenu.

Note: When job completion statuses are changed in this way, an asterisk appears to the right of it, for example, Completed Normally*.

Sorting Jobs in the Job Activity Pane Using Column Headers

You can sort the job occurrences displayed in the JobActivity pane by two different sorting criteria. You can sort on a primary criteria and in turn, organize the primary sort by secondary criteria. The sorts are done by column header in either alphabetical or numerical order depending on the type of data contained in the column.

To sort a job using a column header:

  1. Click Operations > Job Activity on the Navigation pane to display the Job Activity pane.

  1. Click the column header to select it for a primary sort. The jobs sort alphabetically (in text data) or numerically (if numerical data). A single arrow displays beside the column header to denote the primary sort. If you click the header more than once, the sort order toggles back and forth from ascending to descending order.

    To perform a secondary sort, hold down the ALT key while clicking the column header. The secondary sort displays a double arrow in the column header.

    Example: Click the Name column heading. The items in the column are alphabetized from a to z (because the column contains alphabetical data). Clicking again reverses the order z to a. Click the Time column header while holding down the ALT key and the jobs remain in alphabetical order but are now organized also by numerical order (since this column contains numerical data). Now the jobs are arranged in alphabetical order and each numerical segment is organized from earliest time to latest time.

Clicking again on the secondary sort column while holding down the ALT key reverses the secondary sort to latest time to earliest time.

If you click the header more than once, the sort order toggles back and forth from ascending to descending order.

Sorting Jobs Using the Job Filter Dialog

To sort jobs using the Job Filter dialog box:

  1. Click Operations > Job Activity on the Navigation pane to display the Job Activity pane.

  1. Click Filter on the TA toolbar or right-click the Navigation pane and choose Filter from the context menu to display the Job Filter dialog box.

  1. Checking or clearing the options for status or hours enables you to sort jobs using those criteria. You can also sort using other criteria listed including by job name, by agent, by queue, by command, etc.

    Note: The Job Filter dialog includes filter options that affect sorting. For example, if you want to sort by the status column, and some statuses have been filtered out, those statuses will not be used for sorting.

    Note: When a Status column is clicked for sorting within the Job Activity pane, the order is defined by the settings on the Job Status Order tab in the System Configuration dialog box.

Stopping or Starting Jobs in the Job Activity Pane

To stop or start a job:

  1. Click Operations > Job Activity on the Navigation pane to display the Job Activity pane.

  1. Click the job on which to perform job control.

  1. Right-click the job to display the Job Activity context menu.

  1. Click one of these job control options on the Job Control submenu:

    • Select Override to override a job’s dependencies. The job enters a queue and becomes active. Override ignores all dependencies and launches the job immediately.

    • Select Hold/Stop to stop a job from running or to keep a job from launching. The job enters the Held or Stopped status. If the job cannot be held or stopped, you cannot choose this menu item.

      Note: Windows jobs cannot be suspended, therefore this menu item is unavailable for active Windows jobs.

    • Select Release/Resume to release a held job, or a job waiting for operator release or to start a stopped job. The job enters the Active or Waiting On Dependencies status. If the job can’t be released or resumed, you won’t be able to select this menu item.

    • Select Cancel/Abort to cancel a job before running or to abort a job while running (Canceled jobs cannot be rerun). The job enters the Canceled or Aborted status. If the job can’t be canceled or aborted, you won’t be able to select this menu item.

    • Select Cancel/Abort All to cancel all occurrences of a job before running or to abort all occurrences of a job while running.

    • All occurrences of the same job enter the Canceled or Aborted status.

    • Select Rerun to rerun a job. The job re-enters the schedule and is re-executed with the same job ID number. A new occurrence ID is not created. If the job can’t be rerun, you won’t be able to select this menu item.

Viewinga Job’sOutput

You can view the output of a job after the job finishes running. In order to view the output of a job from the Job Activity pane, you must first have the Save Output option selected in the job’s or job group’s definition.

Note: Scheduler’s default is to discard job output.

To view a job’s output:

  1. Click Operations > Job Activity on the Navigation pane to display the Job Activity pane.

  1. Double-click the completed job to display the Job Detail dialog box.

  1. Click the Output tab to view job output.

Viewing Other Dates in the Production Schedule

To view other dates:

  1. Click Operations > Job Activity on the Navigation pane to display the Job Activity pane.

  1. Click the Select Day or right-click in the Job Activity pane and choose the Select Day option to display a Calendar tab.

  1. Click the date to go to. You can use the arrow controls in the title bar to move to different months.