Creating Your First Job

The chapter describes how to use the TA Web client to create, run and view the results of a job.

To complete the exercises in this tutorial, you need to:

Install Tidal Automation in the TA default directory (or the examples in this tutorial will not work properly).
Select the Super User option in your User definition.
Configure a default agent.
Create and have available the work day calendar.

Before you begin the tutorial, you must install at least two agent instances and define connections to them. Refer to the chapters on installing agents in the Tidal Automation Installation and Configuration Guide for more information. These two agents must be installed and running to perform the exercises in this tutorial.

Launching the TA Web Client

To launch the TA Web client, go to http://<servername >:8080, where <servername > is network name or address of Client Manager host, and log on using valid user credentials. For a list of browsers that are supported, refer the TA Compatibility Matrix.

Setting Default Job Parameters

Many parameters can be set from the System Configuration dialog. We will use the Tidal Automation defaults throughout most of this tutorial.

To check, and if necessary, to change the default agent:

Click the Activities menu, open System Configuration to display the System Configuration dialog .
Click the Defaults tab.
Open a valid agent from the Agent Name list to change the default agent.
Click OK.

Creating the Report Job Definition

To create the Report Job definition:

Launch the TA Web client.
Open Definitions > Jobs on the Navigation pane to display the Jobs pane. Unless other users have already created job definitions, the display does not show any data at this time.
Right-click in the Jobs pane of the console and click Add Job from the context menu, or click Add Job on the toolbar.

Enter Report as the name of your new job in the Job Name field.
Enter the command for your operating system in the Command field:

Windows:
```
C:\ProgramFiles\TIDAL\Agent\TUTORIAL\report.bat.
```
OR
```
C:\Program Files (x86)\TIDAL\Agent\TUTORIAL\report.bat, 
```
if your agent was installed on 64-bit Windows machine, using default installation path.

Note: Report.bat is a batch file which executes the sleep.exe program for 30 seconds.

UNIX:
```
/UNIX_TEST_1.sh
```
Note: The command /UNIX_TEST_1.sh lists all files in the current directory on the agent machine.

Click the Run tab.
Select a runtime user with access to the Unix agent from the Runtime Users list.

Note: The runtime user is the user under whose account the program or script needs to run. Since Unix Test 1 is a system command, any user with access to the Unix agent can run this command.
Click OK. A confirmation dialog appears. This confirmation dialog reminds you that since a calendar is not associated with the job, it will not be scheduled to run automatically. We did not select a calendar because we are going to submit the job manually.
Click Yes.

The Report job displays in the Jobs pane with your user name as the owner.

Adding Your Job to the Production Schedule

You can now add the job to the production schedule.

To add the job to the production schedule:

Right-click the Reports job and click Insert Job Into Schedule from the context menu. The Insert Job Into Schedule dialog appears.
Click OK.
Click OK, when the Information dialog confirming that the job was added to the current production schedule displays.
Open Operations > Job Activity in the Navigation pane to monitor your job.

Monitoring Your Job

The Job Activity pane is a key component in monitoring your production schedule with Tidal Automation. All crucial job scheduling information is available at a glance from the Job Activity pane. The easy-to-read layout allows you to focus on the area of the display that is of interest to you. The columns and panes are resizable. Scrollbars facilitate access to the data you need.

From the Job Activity pane, you can:

See when jobs are added or scheduled.
Remove jobs (if you have sufficient security privileges).
Monitor the progress of a job from a scheduled state through execution of the job.
Control job execution.

The job statistics on the Job Activity pane include:

Job owner
Tidal Automation agent assigned to run the job
Estimated duration of the job
Exit code of the completed job
Actual command that the job represents
Next date on which the job will run
Calendar associated with the job (if any)
Queue associated with the job (if any)
Job’s priority level
Job group associated with the job (if any)

When jobs are scheduled, the Jobs pane in the center of the console shows one job per line, plus the job number, job name, job status, etc.

Job Output Options

There are three job output options:

Discard – Discards all job outputs. There will be no output log available for review.
Append – Saves job outputs by appending the current output to a single log.
Replace – Creates a new output file each time the job runs, replacing the previous log.

Note: Tidal Automation’s default is to discard output.

Specifying the Disposition of Job Output

To specify the disposition of job output:

Open System Configuration from the Activities main menu.
Click the Defaults tab.
Check Discard, Append or Replace in the Save Output Option section. For the exercises in this tutorial, check Replace.
Click OK.

Note: To be able to view the output of a job, the Append or Replace option for job output must be selected prior to running the job.

Viewing Job Output

You can view the output of a job at any time if you selected the Append or Replace option for job output prior to running the job.

To view job output:

Go to the Job Activity pane.

Note: To display the Job Detail dialog , either double-click the Report job or right-click the Report job and click Details from the context menu.
Click the Output tab. If you do not enable the Save Output option before running a job, you will see a Tidal Automation message rather than actual job output.

Click OK.