═══ 1. Read-Me First ═══ This software is being made available as a beta version until June 30, 1994. if you have any comments, suggestions, or problems, Please Call us at 219-833-4556 or 219-482-3179 ═══ 1.1. License Agreement ═══ You should carefully read the following terms and conditions before using this software. Use of this software indicates your acceptance of these terms and conditions. You are hereby licensed to: use the beta version of the software for a 45 day evaluation period, not to extend past June 30,1994; make as many copies of the beta version of this software and documentation as you wish; use the beta version of this software on as many computers as you would like. You are specifically prohibited from charging, or requesting donations, for any copies, however made; and from distributing the software and/or documentation with other products (commercial or otherwise). ═══ 1.2. Warranty Disclaimer ═══ Disclaimer This software and the accompanying files are given "as is". The user must assume the entire risk for using this software. In no event shall Evolutionary Software Company, employees,its contractors or the authors of this documentation be liable for special, direct, indirect or consequential damages, loses,costs,charges,claims,demands or claim for lost profits,fees or expenses of any nature or kind. Warranty EXCEPT AS RESTRICTED BY LAW, THE SOFTWARE PROGRAMS CONTAINED IN THE FILE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, TITLE OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. ═══ 2. Introduction ═══ The Evolutionary Software Batch Management System allows you to control Mission critical jobs and repetitive task from with in the OS/2 Workplace shell. By utilizing the power of System Object Modules (SOM) and the OS/2 Workplace shell The standard OS/2 Graphical Interface is used to create job proprieties, review logs, and verify execution of programs. Since the programs are user defined as WPS Objects you can execute OS/2, DOS, and Windows programs. You can control program parameters like full screen, windowed, minimized and DOS Settings just like any OS/2 Object! Evolutionary software has added a page to the settings note book on a program object. The Page on the notebook Titled "Batch Time" has all the necessary settings to automatically start that particular object. If you are familiar with the OS/2 Workplace shell you will find the Evolutionary software approach extremely easy to use. ═══ 3. Installation ═══ ═══ 3.1. Performing the Installation ═══ 1. Place the installation diskette into a diskette drive (for example, Drive A). 2. Open an OS/2 window (found in OS/2 System Command Prompts). 3. Make the diskette drive the current drive by typing in the drive letter (for example A:) then press Enter. 4. Then type in "ESINST" and press Enter to start the install program. 5. The install program will then display a screen with the source drive for the installation diskette set to the A drive. The target drive for transferring of the installation files set to the C drive. The target directory for the installation files has been set to BATCH. Change the the values if necessary to match your environment. 6. Point to the Install button and Click. 7. Follow any further instructions during the install program. 8. After installation completes remove the installation diskette from the drive. 9. Please reboot your computer. ═══ 3.2. Installation Details ═══ This installation will perform the major functions listed below. This installation will require a reboot of your computer. 1. The installation diskette will be copied to a target drive and directory selected by the installer. 2. The LIBPATH,PATH,DPATH, and SET BOOKSHELF statements in the CONFIG.SYS will be updated to include the selected target drive and directory. The original CONFIG.SYS will be saved as CONFIG.ESI 3. A new folder will be created on your OS/2 desktop containing the program objects in support of the Evolutionary Software Task Scheduler & Management System. 4. A log file(batchlog.dat) will be created and initialized in the target directory. 5. A registration folder will temporarily be created in your OS/2 startup folder. After re-booting your computer(per installation instructions) the registration of the Evolutionary Software Task Scheduler & Management system will complete. The registration will remove itself from the startup folder as this should only be needed once during the installation. 6. A new object will be created in your templates folder. This new object named "Batch" will be what you use to drag to the desktop for each task to be scheduled. Note: SET RESTARTOBJECTS=NO If this parameter is in your computers CONFIG.SYS, a warning message should have been issued by the install program. This is not an error, but the program object that was added to your startup folder will not execute after you reboot your computer. Therefore after you have re-booted your computer you must open the startup folder (found in OS/2 System) and point to the registration object and double-click. This will start the registration program and complete the installation. ═══ 4. Getting Started ═══ This section will run you through an example to create an object. The object we will create will be called fred. Fred will be scheduled to execute every 1 minute. After we have created fred, you will be able to go look into the log file and see when fred has run. So let's get started. In order to create fred we need to open your OS/2 templates folder. Find your OS/2 templates folder and double click on it. When the folder opens up, find the object that looks like the following. Point your mouse pointer at the object. Hold down your right mouse button and drag out a new batch object. A dialog notebook will appear that looks like the following. In the Path and file name field key in the path of where you installed the batch system An example would be "c:\batch\fred.cmd". Click on the Batch Time tab of the notebook.The following notebook will appear. Fill it out exactly as seen above. The start date and time field will get updated to a more current date the first time it scheduled to run. Close the window out after you have finished. You have created your first Batch Object. In order for the object to be scheduled an executed, You need to run the batch agent. Locate and Double click on the Batch Folder. Inside the Batch Folder you will find a program called Batch Agent. Double click on the Batch Agent. If you have setup fred correctly as soon as you double click on the Batch Agent fred should run. It will them run every 1 minute after that. After fred has run a couple of times, Let's check the log. Open up the batch folder and click on the program object titled view Log. There should be some entries in there titled batch. That is fred. If you wanted the entries to be titled something other than batch, Change the title of the object on the desktop. I hope this section helped you get started. ═══ 5. Creating New Objects ═══ ═══ 5.1. Overview ═══ This section will describe the basic steps necessary in creating a new task to be scheduled and executed. The headings in this section will be referenced and highlighted so you can click on those headings to get a more detailed explanation as you read through the overview. Each new Batch object starts in the templates folder. Simply drag out a Batch object from the templates folder as explained in Create The New Object. After the object has been put on the desktop, a notebook will appear. In the notebook are tabs with the setting information for each object that cause the object to automatically start. Settings for the batch time tab are explained in Modifying "Batch Time" After the batch time tab has been filled out and the update button has been pressed. The object is ready to be started at the given times. After all the objects have been created The agent needs to be run in order for the objects to be automatically executed. It would be the suggestion of evolutionary software to create a shadow of the Batch Agent and put it in the startup folder.This will ensure the agent will be executed every time you start your computer. You can find out how to create a shadow by consulting your OS/2 Documentation. The batch agent icon looks like the following. More information on the Batch Agent can be found in The agents Job. ═══ 5.2. Create The New Object. ═══ In order to get a new Batch object from the templates folder, first you must locate the templates folder. The templates folder looks like the following. Once you locate the templates folder, open it by double clicking on it with the left mouse button. The templates folder will open up. locate the "Batch" template object In the templates folder . It will look like the following. Position your cursor on the BATCH object template. Hold down your right mouse button and drag the new object out to an empty spot on your desktop. The first screen you will see is the setting page for the batch object. This setting page is exactly the same as a program object. In fact, the Batch object is exactly the same as program object with the exception of a new tab that is added called "Batch Time".Consult your OS/2 documentation on how to set up a program object. An explanation of the "Batch Time" tab in the notebook is explained in Modifying "Batch Time" ═══ 5.3. Modifying "Batch Time". ═══ Click on the batch Time tab with the left mouse button In order to open the time settings for that object. The batch time tab looks like the following. After you click on that tab a page comes up in the book that looks like the following. Each letter from the above figure is explained in the following list. A.) The start date and time box represents the next date and time the object will be executed. B.) The Repeat Every box represents how often you want the object to repeat. Put a number in the upper box. Put a quantity of time in the pull down list. Example would be "5 ,seconds". This object would then execute every five seconds. If you have the object Repeat interval set on none then it will only run once. However it will not delete the object. This could be useful for setting up objects that need to run at night but you don't know what day. When you find out what day schedule that object at that time you want it to run. The object will only run once again. C.) These check boxes represent exception days. If you never want this object to execute on a monday, put a check in the M box. D.) If you press the help button, You guessed it. You get this help facility. E.) The update button commits all changes made to the dialog box to the database. If you do not press the update button all the changes you have made in this dialog box are lost. F.) This is a list box full of exception days. If the object is scheduled to run on 2/20/95, but the list box has that day in it. The object will not run on that day. G.) This button deletes all exception days out of the list box that have been selected. H.) This button adds a date from the date entry field to the list box. I.) This Is the date entry field. If you type a date in this box and hit the add button. The date will move from this box to the date exception list box. ═══ 6. Logging Information In The Log File ═══ The log file consists of three fields. 1. The Name Field 2. The Start Date/Time Field 3. The Action Field All actions that take place on batch objects are automatically logged into the log file. Currently there are 3 different types of actions The 3 action types are. 1. Program Was executed. 2. The Program Was Closed 3. The Settings View was opened User defined actions and names. However, there are times that the user may want to log information to the file saying that a particular job maybe half completed. For this reason we have provided 2 command line utilities. The 2 command Line utilities are. 1. log.exe->OS/2 log program 2. doslog.EXE->Dos log program Both Log.exe and doslog.exe have the same parameters. The first parameter is the name field. The name field can be no longer than 30 characters. The second parameter is the action field. The action field can be no longer than 150 characters. Here are 2 examples 1. log "batch" "The return code was 5" 2. doslog "DOS batch" "Batch file transfer completed " ═══ 7. The Agent's Job. ═══ The agents job is to check the database on a regular basis. The frequency that the agent checks the database is determined by spin button A. in the fig. The agent checks the database. If the object needs to be executed, it executes that object and then stores the next start interval in the object database. The object at close time will update it's desktop title based on the next start time in the database. The Log button B. in the fig will execute the log viewing program. The help button D. in fig will get you to this help facility. The last scan time is the last time the agent checked the database for batch objects to execute. ═══ 8. Modify An Existing Object. ═══ ═══ 8.1. Modify All object Parameters ═══ Every object's parameters can be changed. If you want to change an objects parameters, Move the cursor so that it points to the object. Click the right mouse button once and the following menu comes up. Click with the left mouse button on the arrow next to the word open in the menu. A second menu will pop up with the word settings. Click with the left mouse button on the word settings. The notebook associated with this object will come up. For further information on this notebook see Modifying "Batch Time" . ═══ 8.2. Modifying Start Date/time ═══ You can modify the start date time by changing the title of the object. Simply point the cursor at the object. Hold down the control key and press the left mouse button. You can now modify the title of the object. Simply stay within the format of yy/mm/dd,hh/mm/ss,title and the object database will get updated with the new date and time. ═══ 9. View log file ═══ The Evolutionary Software Task Scheduler & Management System automatically records events associated with each task scheduled. This provides a historical log that may be used to track all scheduled tasks. The view utility has been provided to display all the events recorded in the log file. Filters may also be used to select only matching log entries. You may periodically want to make a copy of the current log file for historical purposes. You may also wish to clear the log file. The ability to copy and view those historical logs is provided within the utility. The Menu Bar contains the following options: File o Open - This will select a different log file to report on. o Copy - This will copy the current log file to another file. o Initialize - This will create/clear and initialize the log file for processing. Filter o By Day - Select events logged for a specific day of the week. o By Month - Select events logged for a specific month. o By Date - Select events logged for a specific month and day. o By Name - Select events logged for a specific task name. o By Action - Select events logged for a specific action. o Remove - Removes the filter and selects all events. Exit This will exit the program. Help This will initiate help. ═══ ═══ The Settings view was opened meant that someone opened the settings page for that object. This means that some of the objects settings could have been changed. This will have a corresponding close. ═══ ═══ This means that the current open view closed. ═══ ═══ This means that the object was actually executed. There will be a corresponding close for this object. ═══ ═══ The name field contains the WorkPlace Shell title of the object. If you change the title of the object. That title change will be reflected in the log file the next time an action takes place on that object. ═══ ═══ The action field contains the WorkPlace Shell action That took place on the object. There are a number of different Types of actions which are discussed Later. ═══ ═══ The Time field contains the time the WorkPlace Shell action took place on the object. This time is automatically stored by the object and or the command line log utilities.