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
Command
Argument
Value
Parameter
GotoURL
url
http://example.com
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
Command
Argument
Value
Parameter
ClickLink
linktext
Go Test
This command finds the link with the given text and clicks it. It will find a link represented by the HTML code like this:
<a href=”index2.php”>Go Test</a>
SetTextBox
Command
Argument
Value
Parameter
SetTextBox
name
username
admin
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:
<input type=”input” name=”username”>
ClickButton
Command
Argument
Value
Parameter
ClickButton
id
LoginContent_btn_Continue
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:
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:
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
There are explanations of Terminal Server features spread over the user manual, but to make it easy for the users who need Terminal Server features we’ll explain how Advanced Task Scheduler works from the Terminal Server’s point of view in this post.
Terminal Sessions are supported in Network edition and in All Users tab in Basic and Professional editions. A scheduled task may run on the active terminal session, or a separate instance of a task will run on each session. It’s not exactly each session; they may be filtered by user name, so the task will run only on sessions, whose user is on the list. Normally, task runs under the same credentials as Terminal Session’s user, “Active user” is the default option, however, you can set up it to run under different credentials.
Let’s consider and example where you are running a Terminal Server and wish to run a program on each session at the specified time. You create a task with appropriate schedule type, set the “Run this task for each logged on and valid user” option on the “User Account Options” tab of the Task Properties window, then the task will run on each Terminal Session at the specified time. A valid user means that the system and inactive terminal sessions are ignored.
Should you wish to run your task for only the sessions where the specific user is logged on, set the “Start this task only if one of the following users is logged on and active” and fill the list of user names.
In Advanced Task Scheduler 4.1 we extended the number of statements that you may use in your task. These statements include checking if a specified file exists or locked and checking user’s idle time. All these checks are performed taking into account the session/user under which the task is being executed.
In conclusion, we encourage you to try Advanced Task Scheduler as a solution to run scheduled tasks on a Terminal Server.
We use Advanced Task Scheduler in a custom php / mysql environment for critical telecoms applications. We have found it simple to use and reliable. It does exactly what it says on the tin. The support we have received from South software for the one system glitch we have ever had was the best I have come across on the internet in over 15 years.
