Replicated Tasks with Advanced Task Scheduler Network

Advanced Task Scheduler Network Edition introduces the “Replicated tasks” group. Tasks from that group can be redistributed over the network to various computers where Advanced Task Scheduler Network is installed.

“Replication” means copying replicated tasks and settings from one machine to another over TCP/IP network periodically with flexible intervals which can be minutely, hourly or daily, or manually by “Replicate now” command from “Options” menu.

“Replicated tasks and settings” means scheduled tasks from the “Replicated tasks” group and settings associated with that group. Each root group in Advanced Task Scheduler has its own settings such as log file and email options, user account options, holidays, credentials. These settings are replicated along with tasks.

Master (one to many)

In master mode the primary server uploads its replicated tasks and settings to secondary servers. Once a task is added or modified on primary server, the changes will appear on secondary servers on the next replication cycle.

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Slave (many to one)

In slave mode secondary servers download their replicated tasks and settings from primary server. Once a task is added or modified on primary server, the changes will appear on secondary servers on the next replication cycle.

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Mixed

Replication modes and directions of network connection can be mixed. This may be useful to optimize network load and firewall configurations.

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Multiple

More than one “Replicated tasks” groups can be used. You can find more information on adding extra root groups here: Advanced Task Scheduler’s SQLite database.

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Strict mode

Strict mode makes full copy of replicated tasks and settings. If a task on primary server has different modification date than on secondary server, the task is updated to secondary server. If settings on primary server have different modification date than on secondary server, they are updated to secondary server. If secondary server has a task that does not exist on primary server, it’s deleted.

Easy mode

Easy mode updates only tasks and settings that modified on primary server later than on secondary server. If secondary server has a task that does not exist on primary server, it’s ignored.

Options

You can edit replication options in the “Replicated” section of the “Preferences” window.

Every time a replication is performed, it can write its results to a file or send them by email.

If your tasks and settings are encrypted and password-protected, you still can use the replication feature, but you’ll need to specify your password in options.

Network restrictions can be set up to restrict connection mode and IP addresses for each machine in Advanced Task Scheduler Network Server’s options.

Notes

All machines must have the same version of Advanced Task Scheduler Network Server installed, otherwise the replication process will fail.

Use “Environment variables” where possible in your tasks as different machines may have different paths. Log files and email subjects can include “Environment variables” too.

All network connections use SSL encryption, so they can’t be intercepted or viewed by third parties.

IE Automation with Task Scheduler

In Advanced Task Scheduler Professional and Network starting from version 4.3 you can automate web browsing: clicking a button, entering data in a text box etc.

The automation is performed by executing series of commands against the document opened in the Internet Explorer web browser. Commands allow you to interact with controls like links, buttons, radios, checkbox, text fields etc. In order to interact with a control it has to be found in the document. A control can be found by matching one of its attributes like id, name, class etc.

An IE Automation command has four parts:
Command – command name.
Argument – name of an attrubute that will be used to find the control in the HTML document.
Value – value of the attrubute in the Argument.
Parameter – additional parameter, it is different for different commands.
You can find detailed commands and their arguments explanation in the IE Automation topic in the Online Manual.

The examples below demonstrate how to use Argument and Value in IE Automation commands to find controls in HTML documents with HTML code snippets.

GotoURL

This command navigates to the given URL and waits for it to be loaded completely. Optionally, the URL can be saved to the file specified in the Parameter instead of being opened in the browser.

ClickLink

This command finds the link with the given text and clicks it. It will find a link represented by the HTML code like this:

SetTextBox

This command finds the text box with the given name and changes its text to “admin”. It will find a text box represented by the HTML code like this:

ClickButton

This command finds the button with the given id and clicks it. Optionally, the produced content can be saved to the file specified in the Parameter, this is useful to download auto-generated files. It will find a button represented by the HTML code like this:

SelectButton

This command finds the check box or radio button which has the given text before it and sets its state to “checked”. It will find a button represented by the HTML code like this:

SelectOption

This command finds the select list with the given name and selects option with the value “one”. It will find a select list and option represented by the HTML code like this:

Testing and Research

In the Options section of the IE Automation shortcut type, you can select the “Show browser window” option. When this option is selected the browser window will appear on the screen and you’ll be able to see how automation commands are being executed.

You can also select the “Do not close browser window when finished” option. This way the browser window will be left opened when the automation commands are finished. You can right-click anywhere on the browser window and select the “View Elements” command from the context menu. This command will show you a list of all elements with their attributes in a separate window.

References
IE Automation

SQL Automation with Task Scheduler

In Advanced Task Scheduler Professional and Network starting from version 4.3 you can run one or more SQL queries one by one via ODBC data sources.

This way you can execute SQL queries on any database that has its own ODBC driver. Advanced Task Scheduler can access a database by ODBC Data source or by ODBC Connection string.

ODBC Data source

You can create ODBC Data sources in the ODBC Data Source Administrator which is available from the Administrative Tools in Windows Control Panel. Each database has its own ODBC Configuration Wizard depending on its database engine.

In ODBC SQL shortcut type you only need to select the User DSN, System DSN or File DSN from the ODBC Data sources.

ODBC Connection string

The ODBC connection string consists of a set of property names and values separated by semi-colons. Basically, the properies are: the server address, database name, user name and password, but each connection string is different depending on your database engine.

In ODBC SQL shortcut type you need to enter your connection string manually in the Connection string field.

For example, to connect to the Microsoft SQL Server running on a server called ServerName, with Windows Authentication and Database called DatabaseName, you might use a connection string like this:

To connect to the PostgreSQL server running on a server called ServerName, with user and password authentication and Database called DatabaseName, you might use a connection string like this:

To connect to the MySQL server running on a server called ServerName, with UTF8 character set and Database called DatabaseName, you might use a connection string like this:

Note that you’ll also need to select UTF8 charset in the Options section of the ODBC SQL shortcut type properties.

Character set

The SQL query is passed to the database driver unmodified in Unicode, however, if the query returns any response such as table rows and fields, the response will be treated as if it was encoded in the character set that is specified in the Options section of the ODBC SQL shortcut type properties.

References
ODBC SQL

Holiday Aware Task Scheduler

In Advanced Task Scheduler Professional and Network Edition you can run tasks on holidays, or avoid running tasks on holidays.

• If you wish to start a task on either a single holiday or all holidays, you can use the “Run on holiday” schedule type with the “Run on the day of holiday” option.
• If you wish to start a task on all days except either a single holiday or all holidays, you can use the “Run on holiday” schedule type with the “Run on all days except holiday” option.
• If you wish to start a task on work days only, excluding holidays and non-work days such as Saturday and Sunday, you can use the “Run weekly” schedule type with the “Work days only” option selected.
• If you wish to start a task on non-work days only, including holidays and non-work days such as Saturday and Sunday, you can use the “Run weekly” schedule type with the “Non-work days only” option selected.
• If you wish to set up work days and holidays, go to the “Holidays” section on the user’s tab of the “Preferences” window.
• If you wish to preview days when the task will start in the future, you can use the “View start time” button on the “Schedule” tab of the “Task Properties” window.

References
Holiday Properties

Videos

Advanced Task Scheduler Overview

This video demonstrates how to download and install Advanced Task Scheduler Professional software.

This video demonstrates how to create scheduled task that plays a video with Windows Media Player. The task will start from Monday to Friday at 6PM.

This video demonstrates how to create scheduled task that runs on the hidden desktop even when no user is logged on into the system. The task will copy file daily at 12AM.