Scheduling Flow Execution¶
Warning
Not available in Factory Lite or Factory Personal license.
Available only in Rulex Platform Standalone installation.
To completely obtain the value from Rulex Factory, many times you need to start a flow computation automatically at a given hour in a given day of the week.
Rulex Platform does not come natively with a scheduling component, and it relies on third-party software for the automatic triggering of its internal functions. As seen in the Automating Rulex Platform page, once a third party software has sent an arbitrary command or condition at a specific moment, then this command can be configured using CLI interface in Standalone installation or API interface in Cloud deployment.
In Windows OS, a native scheduler task software is natively installed. Therefore, you can use it to send the right command to Rulex Platform Standalone installation on Windows operating system.
If Rulex Platform is installed as Standalone application on Windows OS, in Rulex Factory you can use a guided internal interface to configure Windows Task Scheduler to correctly launch Rulex Factory CLI command.
Note
Rulex team discourages the usage of Windows Task Scheduler in production or enterprise environment since Microsoft has configured this tool to work in development and personal situations.
To open the Plan Schedule panel, you need to click on the Plan schedule entry from the flow context menu or from the environment context menu. Clicking on the toolbar shortcut is exactly like opening the Plan schedule panel from the flow context menu for the current flow. The panel opened from these two menus is slightly different according to where you open it:
Flow: you can schedule the computation of the selected flow or for one of its events.
Environment: you can schedule the computation (even in sequence) of a list of flows or for one of its macro resource.
Once opened, on the left of the Plan Schedule panel, you can find the list of the defined schedules. You are then able to add a new schedule by clicking on the Add a new schedule button.
Click the cross icon on an existing schedule to delete it, and double-click on the schedule to rename it.
Schedule configuration¶
Once a new schedule is added to the list, or an existing schedule is selected, you can configure it on the right side of the Plan Schedule panel.
A schedule is composed by three elements:
Action: the command which needs to be launched.
Trigger: the time at which the commands need to be launched.
User: the user who actually sends the command.
for any of these elements, there’s a dedicated a tab in the Plan Schedule panel.
In the Action tab you can configure:
Configuration |
Description |
|---|---|
Type of computation |
The type of object you want to compute in the schedule. In the flow schedule, you need to choose either a flow or an event. In the environment schedule, you need to choose either flows or macros. |
Computation mode |
The type of computation performed in the single flow. You can select: Full, In-memory, In-memory source saving. Available only if the Type of computation is Flows. |
Event/Macro name |
The name of the event, when you’re opening the Plan Schedule panel from the flow, the Type of computation is Event. Or when you’re opening the Plan Schedule panel from the environment, it defines the path of the macro resource you want to schedule (available only if the Type of computation is Macro). |
In the Trigger tab you can configure:
Configuration |
Description |
|---|---|
Trigger type |
The recurrence you want for your schedule, available options are: One time, Daily or Weekly. |
Starting datetime (UTC) |
The starting datetime of your schedule. |
Day recurrence lag |
This option is available when selecting Daily as Trigger type. An interval of 1 produces a daily schedule. An interval of 2 produces an every other day schedule and so on. |
Day of computation |
This option is available when selecting Weekly as Trigger type. It defines when the schedule is run during the week and if the schedule runs every week, every other week, every third week, etc. (e.g. enter 1 to produce a weekly schedule, while enter 2 to produce an every other week schedule and so on). |
In the User tab you can configure:
Configuration |
Description |
|---|---|
Run schedule even if user is logged off |
Check this configuration to run the schedule even if the selected user is not logged in into the machine. |
User domain |
The Windows Active Directory domain (if present) of the user selected for the schedule (as a default it uses the same domain of the Rulex Platform logged user). |
Username |
The Windows Active Directory name of the user selected for the schedule (as a default it uses the same name of the Rulex Platform logged user). |
Password |
Login password of the schedule user, used to permit the Run offline mode. |
Using the Plan schedule¶
To perform a schedule you have to first check the following
Prerequisites
you must have a Standalone installation.
you must use a Windows OS system.
and then follow
Procedure
Open the Explorer
Select an environment or a flow and right-click on it
Select the Plan schedule entry.
In the Plan Schedule panel, click on the Add a new Schedule button and then select the new added schedule.
If you want to rename the just added schedule, double-click on it and then type the desired name. This will be the name added to the Windows Task Scheduler.
Configure the Action, Trigger and User tabs with the information about your schedule following the descriptions included in the tables above.
Click Save to confirm your schedule (it will appear on Windows Task Scheduler) or Cancel to discard your modifications.