• Overview
• Output Routing Options
• Copy Output Routing
• Printer Output
• Fax Output
• Email Output
• File Output
• Viewing Output
• Scheduling Options
• Online Now
• Immediate background Job
• Scheduled background Job
• Recurring background Job

• Help Topics
• Help Index

The Scheduling and Output Options window is a standard window that is used with many programs that do printing or "mass" database updates, such as:

• report programs
• special forms print programs (such as checks or statements)
• month-end or year-end update programs
• batch update programs (such as history purge routines).

• One or multiple Printers, with one or multiple copies per printer
• A list of Fax recipients
• A list of Email recipients
• A text file in a reports directory on the host
• A dynamic HTML document that you can view online in a Web browser

• Online now
• In the background now (so you don't have to wait for it to finish)
• In the background at a scheduled date and time (one time only)
• In the background at an initial time and on a recurring schedule thereafter

The email and fax output options require special software on the host system. If this software is not available or not configured, these checkboxes will be disabled.

Likewise, if no printers are configured on the host system or if you are not authorized to use any printers, the printer checkbox will be disabled.

While these options provide a great deal of flexibility and control, you can easily run a typical report and either print it on your normal printer or view it in a Web browser, with just two steps:

1. Click on the Printer(s) checkbox to print one copy to your default printer, or on the View in Browser checkbox to view the report in a Web browser
2. Click the OK button to accept these choices.

Output Routing Options

In the bottom half of the General Options tab are five checkboxes in a vertical column, under the heading "Select output routing". Initially, none of these boxes are checked. To select output for any of these choices, click on the checkbox to put a check in it. To cancel a choice, click the checkbox again to clear it.

You can select one, several or all choices, unless they are disabled because of security restrictions or unavailability on your system. Also, you cannot use the View choice with background scheduling, for obvious reasons.

When a Printer, Fax or Email checkbox is selected, the button to the right of that checkbox and its corresponding tab will become enabled. Clicking on the button will bring up the tab for that option. (You can also click on the tab at the top of the tabpanel to do the same thing).

For the Save as File Name choice, this will enable the filename textfield and the "Append File" checkbox. This choice does not have a separate tab, only these two selection choices.

For each output choice selected, enter or select the values for that choice, going to the corresponding tab if necessary. When all output choices are completed, click OK to accept them and close this window, or continue with the scheduling options if you have not yet completed those options.

Copy Output Routing

If you have a complex set of output routing selections and have used these selections on a previous job, you can copy the output routing from another job and then make any desired changes to these selections before accepting them.

To do this, click the "Use Existing Routing" button at the far right of the Printer(s) checkbox. This will open a Copy Output Routing window. Enter the Job ID of the previous job, then click OK to copy that Job's output selections into the fields on the tabs of this window. If you do not remember the Job ID, you can click the Browse Jobs button to open a browse window from which you can find and select the Job ID that you want. If you open the Copy window by mistake, click Cancel to close it.

Printer Output

If you checked the Printer(s) checkbox, you can then click the Printer Routing button or tab to view the detailed printer selection options on the Printer Routing tab. This tab contains a table with one row for each printer that is available for your use, plus several additional choices and buttons below the printer table. Normally, the system administrator will have configured one of these printers as your default or "normal" printer.

You can select a different printer, or multiple printers, by double-clicking on a printer row. This will select that printer if it is not yet selected, or will de-select it if it is already selected.

You can do the same thing by single-clicking a row, then clicking on the Select Printer or Deselect Printer buttons below the table.

Normally, only printers with a Status of "Available" should be selected. Other status values are "Removed" or "Unavailable" and are set by the system administrator if a printer is temporarily "out of commission", such as out for repair or loaned to another location. These are NOT real-time status tests of whether a printer is online or offline or busy!

If you want more than one copy printed, enter a different number in the Number of Copies textfield just below the printer table. The number of copies entered will be used for every printer selected (you cannot specify the number of copies by printer).

Likewise, if this print program requires the use of special forms or other special print options, select or enter those choices in the corresponding fields to the right of the Copies field. These choices are application-specific and are not covered further here.

To request the host to display a fresh list of printers in this table, click the Refresh Printers button.

When you have completed the printer selections, click on the Back to General Options button to return to the first (General Options) tab.

Fax Output

If your host system is interfaced with fax software, you can check the Fax output button, and then click the Fax Routing button or tab to open the Fax Routing tab.

This tab contains a table in which you can enter one or more Fax recipients. Each row contains the information normally needed to send a fax. Enter:

• the destination fax telephone number (with prefixes or area codes as needed)
• the name of the person to whom you are sending the fax
• the name of that person's organization (company name).

If you need more lines than are provided initially, click the Add a blank line button to add another blank line at the end of the table (it will scroll if necessary).

To remove a line, click it to highlight it, then click the Remove selected line button.

When you have completed the fax selections, click on the Back to General Options button to return to the first (General Options) tab.

Email Output

If your host system is interfaced with email software (most are), you can check the Email output button, and then click the Email Routing button or tab to open the Email Routing tab.

This tab contains a table in which you can enter one or more email recipients. Each row contains the information normally needed to send an email. On each row, enter:

• the email address (usually something like "tom@abc.com")
• the name of the person to whom you are sending the email

If you need more lines than are provided initially, click the Add a blank line button to add another blank line at the end of the table (it will scroll if necessary).

To remove a line, click it to highlight it, then click the Remove selected line button.

When you have completed the email selections, click on the Back to General Options button to return to the first (General Options) tab.

File Output

To save printed output to a text file in your personal reports directory (if one is set up for you) or in the system reports directory if you don't have one, check the "Save as File" checkbox, then:

• Enter a filename for the output file, in the textfield to the right of the checkbox.
• Check the Append File checkbox if you want to add to the end of any existing file by that name. If you do not check this box and a file of the same name already exists, it will be replaced by the new file.

Viewing Output

To view report output in a Web browser, check the View in Browser checkbox. This option can only be used if you are running this procedure Online Now, not with background scheduling.

When the report has completed, you will either see the report come up in a browser window automatically, or there may be a View button in the program selections window which is then enabled to allow you to do so.

Scheduling Options

The scheduling options let you decide whether to run a report or other program online or in the background. The advantage of running long reports in the background is that your computer is immediately freed up and you can go on to other activities within the application.

However, if you want to view a report in a browser, then the report must be run online (unless you save it to a named file and later, in a separate step, run the "Manage Archived Reports" utility program to view that file).

Background processing is done by a Job Processor program which runs in "batch" mode without any user interaction. One or more of these Job Processors can be started automatically by an operating system script on the host, or manually by the system administrator or other authorized users.

When a program is scheduled to run in the background, a set of JobList, Job Step, Job Parameter and Job records are created to store the program's parameters (reporting criteria, output options and scheduling options). These records are then read by a Job Processor program, which is continuously scanning the JobList queue, looking for programs that are scheduled to be run.

Online Now

To run a report or other program with printed output in a normal "online" mode, click the Online Now radio button to select it. (This button is already selected as the default when this Scheduling and Output Options window is first opened). No other action is required. All other scheduling components and tabs in this window will remain disabled.

Immediate background Job

To run a report or other program in the background as soon as possible (meaning as soon as a Job Processor gets to it in the queue), click the As immediate background job radio button.

This will enable the next set of fields under the heading "Run in background:". Click one of the radio buttons:

• As a new Joblist to run this Job as the only Step in a new JobList (the default)
• In existing JobList to run this Job as an additional Step in an existing JobList (that already has at least one other Job).

If you are adding this Job to an existing JobList, enter the JobList ID of the existing JobList. If you do not remember the JobList ID, you can click the Browse JobLists button to open a browse window from which you can find and select the JobList ID that you want. If you enter an invalid JobList ID, the system will display a warning message when you click OK, so that you can correct it.

Also enter a unique value in the "As step#" field, which can contain decimal values from 0.001 to 999.999 (decimals are used so future Jobs can be added to existing JobLists between Steps). JobList Steps are usually numbered 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, etc. If you enter a Step# that is already used on this JobList, the system will display a warning message when you click OK, so that you can correct it.

The JobList Scheduling tab is enabled so that you can see (if you wish) that the Initial Schedule panel has automatically scheduled the first run for "Now". All other scheduling components on the JobList Scheduling tab will remain disabled, so no other choices are allowed.

Scheduled background Job

To run a report or other program in the background at a scheduled date and time, click the As scheduled background job radio button.

This will enable the next set of fields under the heading "Run in background:". Select or enter values in these fields as described above for Immediate background jobs.

The JobList Scheduling button and tab will also be enabled. Click the button or tab to open the scheduling panel, then select or enter scheduling values in the Initial Schedule panel on the JobList Scheduling tab:

• Select one of the radio buttons: Today or On Date.
• If On Date is selected, then also enter a date (today or later).
• Select a scheduled time (hour, minutes and AM/PM) from the "At:" comboboxes.
• Optionally, you can check the "Stop Joblist if errors occur" checkbox, if the JobList has multiple steps and you do not want later steps to be run if an earlier step has an error.
• Optionally, you can also select an alternate Priority (Low or High), instead of the default (Normal). All eligible JobLists of High Priority are run before Normal Joblists, which are all run before Low priority JobLists.

Recurring background Job

To run a report or other program in the background at an initial scheduled date and time and then on a subsequent regular recurring schedule, first click the As scheduled background job radio button.

This will enable the next set of fields under the heading "Run in background:". Select or enter values in these fields as described above for Immediate background jobs.

The JobList Scheduling button and tab will also be enabled. Click the button or tab to open the scheduling panel. Then select or enter scheduling values for the initial run of this program in the Initial Schedule panel on the JobList Scheduling tab as described above for Scheduled background jobs.

Then, click the Run JobList on a recurring schedule checkbox to select it. This will enable the Recurring Schedule panel. You can now set up the recurring schedule for all runs of this program after the initial run:

• Select either the Daily or Every radio button.
• If Every is selected, enter the period frequency and select the period type, such as "every 2 week(s)", "every 1 Month(s)", etc. Possible period types are Month(s), Week(s), Day(s), Hour(s) and Minute(s).
• If Month(s) is selected, enter a number from 1-31 in the Day of Month textfield. The value 31 has the special meaning of "last day of the month", so it will be anywhere from the 28th to the 31st depending on the month.
• If Week(s) is selected, select a day of the week from the Day of Week combobox.
• Select When to run: At the same time as the initial run or At: [a specified time].
• If the second radio button (At:) is selected, then select a scheduled time (hour, minutes and AM/PM) from the "At:" comboboxes.
• In the On Weekends combobox, select the action to take if a scheduled run falls on a date which is on a Weekend day (as defined in the System Control table):
• Run as usual
• Skip that run
• Run the day before
• Run the day after
• In the On Holidays combobox, select a similar action to take if a scheduled run falls on a date which is on a Holiday (as defined in the System Control table).
• Try to avoid mixing before/after actions for holidays and weekends. If a Monday holiday has a "run the day before" action, and the weekend action is "run the day after", the system may have a nervous breakdown. (Actually, it "punts" and does whatever it wants to in that case!)
• If recurring runs should only occur until a certain date (like the end of the year), enter an expiration date in the Do not run after this date field.
• Congratulate yourself - you have just set up the most complex thing in this system!