Community forum

Please note that VisualCron support is not actively monitoring this community forum. Please use our contact page for contacting the VisualCron support directly.


RonZ3853
2014-10-28T15:50:01Z
I see a great deal of info regarding time exceptions but not for setting a start time. In this case, I'd like a job to start at 8:30 AM and end at 10:50 AM. The trigger would be set to an interval of 5 minutes. How would I set a job to start for 8:30 AM and end at 10:50 AM? Would this require two or more time exceptions?
Sponsor
Forum information
RonZ3853
2014-10-28T16:24:26Z
So I wasn't just going crazy trying to figure this out? Thanks al355.
bbusse
2014-10-28T17:18:54Z
Simplest way i can think of would be to create a trigger for 8:30am and then a timeout on the job itself for 2 hours and 20 minutes later (10:50am), so the job can only ever run for 2 hours and 20 min without ending.

Brian
al355
2014-10-28T17:23:02Z
Originally Posted by: bbusse 

Simplest way i can think of would be to create a trigger for 8:30am and then a timeout on the job itself for 2 hours and 20 minutes later (10:50am), so the job can only ever run for 2 hours and 20 min without ending.

Brian



Agree that this would work but then it converts the job from being an FTP/email trigger to being a time based trigger.
osirisja
2014-10-28T17:27:44Z
Hi RonZ3853

I 'think' I understand what you are asking and if so, I beleive you can define this using a Custom Time Trigger. I just set this up to trigger a job to run every 15 minutes from 4.00am until 7:45 am just by selecting 'Choose Weekdays (Monday to Friday)', 'Choose Hours (4am, 5am, 6am and 7am)', and 'Choose Minutes (0, 15, 30 and 45)'. You would just need to select every 5 minute interval.

Is this what you are looking to do? I guess you could also use timer exceptions to add times you don't want the trigger to run?

The one thing I would like to see is the ability to reset a timer to the next day, once it has triggered succesfully - e.g. I check for a file appearing on an FTP server in between the times set above. If it appears, for example, at 05:15 am, and the job runs succesfully, I would like to then inactivate the trigger until the next day. Equally, if the trigger hasn't been activated by 7:45 am I would like to send a Notification that the file hasn't been received within the alloted time window. I know I can use the Job/Task control task to inactivate the trigger, but then I need to define other jobs with time triggers to re-activate 'time triggers' at, e.g. midnight.

Hopefully I haven't misunderstood your request.

Cheers

Andy

EDIT : For an Event based trigger, you could also define a Time based trigger and set it as a trigger 'Dependency'
bbusse
2014-10-28T17:30:19Z
Specifically replying to Ron here...

I think i originally misread your post... but if this is wrong too, ignore me haha.

If you want something to run every 5 minutes between 8:30am and 10:50am, do a Custom time trigger instead of an Interval trigger.

Create multiple triggers that don't overlap.

1. Select Every Year, Every Month, Every day, just the hours of 8, 9, and 10, and for this first one, just the 30,35,40,45, and 50 minutes of the hour, 0 seconds.
2. Select the same as above, but when it comes to minutes, select only the hours of 9 and 10 (not 😎. Select minutes 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25
3. Same as above, but only select 8 and 9 for the hour, and 55 for the minute.

That'd get you every 5 minutes between 8:30 and 10:50am if i'm not mistaken ;-)

Brian
al355
2014-10-28T17:33:53Z
Actually Ron's request was simpler than mine in that mine is for an email or FTP trigger. Probably the best option in my case is to expire the trigger as has been mentioned by bbuse although not sure this works with an FTP trigger and how do you re-activate it (with another job I guess but this feels a bit messy)
bbusse
2014-10-28T17:36:47Z
Yeah, as of right now.... it is messy. Only way i can think of also ^^

Brian
RonZ3853
2014-10-28T18:00:43Z
Originally Posted by: bbusse 

Simplest way i can think of would be to create a trigger for 8:30am and then a timeout on the job itself for 2 hours and 20 minutes later (10:50am), so the job can only ever run for 2 hours and 20 min without ending.

Brian



The trigger start time has a date associated with it so I take it that this would only run once. Is this correct?
RonZ3853
2014-10-28T18:15:38Z
Originally Posted by: osirisja 

Hi RonZ3853

I 'think' I understand what you are asking and if so, I beleive you can define this using a Custom Time Trigger. I just set this up to trigger a job to run every 15 minutes from 4.00am until 7:45 am just by selecting 'Choose Weekdays (Monday to Friday)', 'Choose Hours (4am, 5am, 6am and 7am)', and 'Choose Minutes (0, 15, 30 and 45)'. You would just need to select every 5 minute interval.
,,,
Andy
EDIT : For an Event based trigger, you could also define a Time based trigger and set it as a trigger 'Dependency'



Most of my confusion comes from a legacy application which allows you to set the hours and minutes for when a job starts and stops in VC. However, it only enters the hours as exceptions, never the minutes. There's a lot of info on setting exceptions but I think what I really want to do is what Andy suggests. I'll try it next.
RonZ3853
2014-10-28T18:45:57Z
Creating a custom trigger to run at specific times worked. Time exceptions are so very prominent in VC that I didn't think of the custom trigger as having a "run" time rather than an "exception" time. Thanks Andy.
Scroll to Top