How can I enforce a common maintenance window for a number of jobs?

Question

I’d like to create a master holiday schedule that I could associate with each job in order to minimize job maintenance on a year to year basis. 

• I thought I could do this via the schedule functionality, but once I specify a Schedule I lose the ability to define the job’s start time.   
• Alternatively, I looked at the job function’s Non Working Day definition screen and there is an Include from Hot Folder option, but nothing happens when I hit the New button.

Could you provide a pointer to documentation on how best to handle the holiday calendar issue and what the function is for the schedule definitions? 

Answer

1. HOLIDAYS

There are several ways to set Holidays:

Specify individual 'Holidays' days for individual Jobs /Orders

• Use JOE to open your live folder and open the Run Time -> Non Working Days function:
• Here you can specify the individual dates of Holidays.
• With this method the Holidays will only apply for the individual Job or Order.

Specify a preconfigured 'Holidays' file for individual Jobs /Orders 

• Create a file (e.g. ./config/live/holidays.xml) with content such as the following:
• Specification of a specific day as a holiday

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
  <holidays>
       <holiday  date="2016-03-15"/>
  </holidays>

  


• Use JOE and open the Run Time -> Non Working Days function.
  • There you can apply the holidays file to individual Jobs or Orders.
    • The checkbox "from Hot Folder" has to be active.
    • Type holidays.xml in the combobox (the full path below the live folder must be entered) and click Add File
  • Once again, the Holidays will only apply for each Job/Order which you have specified the file for.

Specify 'global' Holidays that will apply to all Jobs and Orders configured for the JobScheduler

• Configure the Holidays in the ./config/scheduler.xml file
  
• In this case the Holidays are used by all Jobs and Orders.
• You can either:
  • Add the following to the scheduler.xml file using a text editor:
    • Specification of Saturday and Sunday as holidays every week

      <holidays >
        <weekdays >
          <day  day="6"/>
          <day  day="7"/>
        </weekdays>
      </holidays>

    • Note that the correct order of elements in the ./config/scheduler.xml has to be followed when manually adding elements  - the order is shown in the Reference Documentation  XML Configuration Page.

  • Use JOE to configure the scheduler.xml file using the Open JobScheduler Configuration button and navigating to the JobScheduler's config folder:

  • Note also that:
    • changes in the scheduler.xml require that the JobScheduler is restarted.

2. SCHEDULES

You can also specify Non Working Days for Schedules. To do this you create a Schedule as a separate object and assign it to the Run Time of a Job or Order.

We recommend you use this approach if you have a number of Jobs or Orders which should have always the same Run Time.
If you want to change the Run Time for all these Jobs or Orders then you only have to change the run time in the schedule.
In addition, a Schedule can have a substituted Schedule. The substituted Schedule can have a different Run Time and is valid for a specific period. This is useful, for example, for specifying maintenance windows.