Scheduling Windows task to print a BR report?

Post by **Susan Smith** » Thu May 17, 2012 12:23 am

Hi all,

I'm not sure where to start with this. My client has satellite stores that attach to their file server for various functions. There is a report that the stores need to pick up every morning so it can be referred to throughout the day. It can't be emailed as they do not have email access at the store sites. The client wants me to automatically generate this BR report each night (overnight hours) and send it to a PDF file in a specified folder that the stores have access to. Then it will be up to the store personnel to open that file and keep it handy to refer to during the day.

I'm pretty much okay with generating the report to PDF, but how can I automate this (unattended) when they aren't even logged into their workstations overmight? The workstations are running Win7 and the server is running Win 2003 Server, but we are NOT using the Client Server version of Business Rules.

Do I schedule a Windows task? Is it done at a particular workstation or on the server? And how do I answer the various prompts such as login name and password and then launch the BR program too? Do I use something like AutoIt for this?

Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thank you!

-- Susan

Post by **Susan Smith** » Thu May 17, 2012 12:25 am

Follow up...

If I can't figure this out, I might create some sort of "end of day" routine that they need to run everyday and make them run the PDF report as part of that routine instead of trying to do it unattended at night.

-- Susan

Mikhail · Post by **Mikhail** » Thu May 17, 2012 12:29 am

Erisa does this type of stuff with Windows tasks. I think it makes more sense to put the task on the server, but you can also run the task on some particular machine.

From: br_forum-bounces@ads.net [mailto:br_forum-bounces@ads.net] On Behalf Of Susan Smith
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2012 9:24 AM
To: br_forum@ads.net
Subject: [BR_forum] Scheduling Windows task to print a BR report?

Hi all,

I'm not sure where to start with this. My client has satellite stores that attach to their file server for various functions. There is a report that the stores need to pick up every morning so it can be referred to throughout the day. It can't be emailed as they do not have email access at the store sites. The client wants me to automatically generate this BR report each night (overnight hours) and send it to a PDF file in a specified folder that the stores have access to. Then it will be up to the store personnel to open that file and keep it handy to refer to during the day.

I'm pretty much okay with generating the report to PDF, but how can I automate this (unattended) when they aren't even logged into their workstations overmight? The workstations are running Win7 and the server is running Win 2003 Server, but we are NOT using the Client Server version of Business Rules.

Do I schedule a Windows task? Is it done at a particular workstation or on the server? And how do I answer the various prompts such as login name and password and then launch the BR program too? Do I use something like AutoIt for this?

Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thank you!

-- Susan

Post by **Susan Smith** » Thu May 17, 2012 12:33 am

Thanks Mikhail. I'll experiment with this a bit and see if the client prefers it to run attended at night or if they want to explicitly run it before they go home for the day. I guess I'd better write the report first

-- Susan

GomezL · Post by **GomezL** » Thu May 17, 2012 4:54 am

I attached a portion of our documentation explaining how to Schedule a task in Windows 7.

My general advices is to create a "Batch File" using a "cmd" or "bat" file.

@ECHO OFF
CD [WBWIN] Folder
SET WBStart=[Something That lets you know what to do]
wb32.exe RUN [Startup Program]

Of course you will need to fill in the appropriate values, and certainly your program needs to run unattended, but once the program works from a "Batch File", you can simple add the batch file to the Scheduler, and it should work very nicely.

gtisdale · Post by **gtisdale** » Thu May 17, 2012 4:57 am

Susan:

I do this every night. At 2:00AM each morning my workstation runs a scheduled task that opens BR and runs a BR program that polls individual timesheet entries for each employee, posts the entries to my work-in-process files for billing later, runs a report of the days activites, clears the time sheets for the next day and exits. The timesheet reports re printed to archived history file so I can go back and review any day that I want.

The Windows task is set with a username and password (run as) so the user does not need to be logged on, only the computer needs to be on. So just pick a computer, including the server, and schedule a task. As long as your BR program does not ask for user input the task will run fine in either unattended or attended mode. The difference is that unattended mode will exit if you ask for user input, the attended mode will sit there waiting for an answer. If you use a timeout on any input requests and provide a default answer normal attended mode works as well as unattended and may be preferable while you are testing. You can always switch to unattended later by changing your BRCONFIG.sys.

FNGeorge

Kevin Klappstein · Post by **Kevin Klappstein** » Thu May 17, 2012 8:12 am

It is worth noting that it doesn't matter what type of BR! you are running. We mix the client server installs with stand alone scheduled tasks on our clients all the time and it works like a charm.

Kevin Klappstein
Western Canadian Software

BLarry1T · Post by **BLarry1T** » Thu May 17, 2012 8:43 am

Does each location needing the report have a computer? Each time BR is started the satellite can see if there is a report to be picked up. Your email says the store is responsible for picking the file.

From: br_forum-bounces@ads.net [mailto:br_forum-bounces@ads.net] On Behalf Of Mikhail Zheleznov
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2012 2:29 AM
To: 'Business Rules Forum'
Subject: Re: [BR_forum] Scheduling Windows task to print a BR report?

Erisa does this type of stuff with Windows tasks. I think it makes more sense to put the task on the server, but you can also run the task on some particular machine.

From: br_forum-bounces@ads.net (br_forum-bounces@ads.net) [mailto:br_forum-bounces@ads.net] ([email][mailto:br_forum-bounces@ads.net][/email]) On Behalf Of Susan Smith
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2012 9:24 AM
To: br_forum@ads.net (br_forum@ads.net)
Subject: [BR_forum] Scheduling Windows task to print a BR report?

Hi all,

I'm not sure where to start with this. My client has satellite stores that attach to their file server for various functions. There is a report that the stores need to pick up every morning so it can be referred to throughout the day. It can't be emailed as they do not have email access at the store sites. The client wants me to automatically generate this BR report each night (overnight hours) and send it to a PDF file in a specified folder that the stores have access to. Then it will be up to the store personnel to open that file and keep it handy to refer to during the day.

I'm pretty much okay with generating the report to PDF, but how can I automate this (unattended) when they aren't even logged into their workstations overmight? The workstations are running Win7 and the server is running Win 2003 Server, but we are NOT using the Client Server version of Business Rules.

Do I schedule a Windows task? Is it done at a particular workstation or on the server? And how do I answer the various prompts such as login name and password and then launch the BR program too? Do I use something like AutoIt for this?

Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thank you!

-- Susan

Post by **Susan Smith** » Thu May 17, 2012 9:36 am

Thanks everybody! I have some great input to go on now! I have sent the client a few questions to clarify some issues so that I can figure out the best way to proceed. Thank you all so much. I'll be back for more later

-- Susan