If you have purchased Remote Build servers, those machines and your local machine will appear in the list of available machines under the field, Adding Machines to the Full Workflow Execute. Without Remote Build servers, you will only be able to define activities within your Workflow for your local machine, My Computer. For each available build machine, a different set of activities can be set on the Activities Tab screen. When the Workflow is executed, it will execute all activities on all machines highlighted in this field.
By using the integrated scheduling tool, you will no longer need to call an external scheduler or manually execute activities at regular times. Scheduled Workflows will always run on a local machine or Remote Build Server. If you schedule a Workflow to run on My Computer, it will use your Local Machine. If you schedule a Workflow for a remote machine, it will run on a Remote Build Server. Table DW-11 shows the values and special characters for input into the Edit Schedule Execution pop-up window from left to right, and Table WF-12 includes examples of expressions used for basic Workflow scheduling.
Table DW-11. Values and Special Characters for Workflow Scheduling
|
Field Name |
Values |
Special Characters |
|
Minute |
0-59 |
, - * / |
|
Hour |
0-23 |
, - * / |
|
Date |
1-31 |
, - * ? / L W C |
|
Month |
1-12 or JAN-DEC |
, - * / |
|
Weekday |
1-7 or SUN-SAT |
, - * ? / L C # |
The , (comma) character is used to specify additional values. For example MON,WED,FRI in the day-of-week field means the days Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
The - character is used to specify ranges. For example, 10-12 in the hour field means the hours 10, 11, and 12.
The * character is used to specify all values. For example, the * character in the minute field means every minute.
The ? character is used for the day-of-month and day-of-week fields and denotes no specific value. Use this character when you need to specify something exclusively in one of the two fields, but not in the other field. The allowed characters and the names of months and days of the week are not case sensitive.
The special characters /, L, W, C, and # are explained in detail below, and examples of advanced scheduling expressions are shown in Table DW-12.
Table DW-12. Examples of Basic Workflow Scheduling Expressions
|
Expression |
Meaning |
|
15 10 ? * * |
Fire at 10:15 a.m. every day. |
|
15 10 * * ? |
Fire at 10:15 a.m. every day. |
|
* 14 * * ? |
Fire every minute starting at 2 p.m. and ending at 2:59 p.m. every day. |
|
10,44 14 ? 3 WED |
Fire at 2:10 p.m. and at 2:44 p.m. every Wednesday in the month of March. |
|
15 10 ? * MON-FRI |
Fire at 10:15 a.m. every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. |
The Workflow Scheduling tool also features special shorthand characters for scenarios that would be more difficult to achieve with the basic scheduling characters. Expressions used for advanced Workflow scheduling are shown in Table DW-13.
Table DW-13. Examples of Advanced Scheduling Expressions
|
Expression |
Meaning |
|
0/5 14 * * ? |
Fire every 5 minutes starting at 2 p.m. and ending at 2:55 p.m. every day. |
|
0 5/2 LW * ? |
Fire every 2 hours starting at 5:00 a.m. and ending at 11 p.m. on the last weekday of every month. |
|
15 10 ? * 6L |
Fire at 10:15 a.m. on the last Friday of every month. |
|
15 10 ? * 6#3 |
Fire at 10:15 a.m. on the third Friday of every month. |
Use the / character to specify increments. For example, 0/15 in the minutes field means the minutes 0, 15, 30, and 45. Likewise, 5/15 in the minutes field means the minutes 5, 20, 35, and 50. Specifying the * character before the / character is equivalent to specifying 0 as the starting value. Essentially, for each field in the expression, there is a set of numbers that can be turned on or off. For seconds and minutes, the numbers range from 0 to 59. For hours 0 to 23, for days of the month 0 to 31, and for months 1 to 12, the / character simply turns on every nth value in the given set. Thus, 7/6 in the month field only turns on month 7, it does not mean every sixth month—please note that subtlety.
Use the L character to specify the day-of-month and day-of-week fields. This character is shorthand for last, but it has a different meaning in each of these two fields. For example, the value L in the day-of-month field means the last day of the month regardless of how many days are in the month (including leap years). If it is used in the day-of-week field by itself, it simply means 7 or SAT; however, if it is used in the day-of-week field after another value, it means the last x day of the month. For example, 6L means the last Friday of the month. When you use the L option, do not specify lists or ranges of values or the results will be confusing.
Use the W character to specify the day-of-month field—that is, the weekday (Monday-Friday) nearest to the given day. For example, specifying 15W as the value for the day-of-month field means the nearest weekday to the fifteenth of the month. Therefore, if the fifteenth is a Saturday, the trigger will fire on Friday the fourteenth. If the fifteenth is a Sunday, the trigger will fire on Monday the sixteenth. If the fifteenth is a Tuesday, then it will fire on Tuesday the fifteenth. However, if you specify 1W as the value for the day-of-month field, and the first is a Saturday, the trigger will fire on Monday the third because the trigger will not jump backwards over the boundary of a month's days. The W character can only be specified when the day of month is a single day, not a range or list of days.
Combine the L and W characters for the day-of-month expression LW, which means the last weekday of the month.
Use the # character to specify the day-of-week field as the nth x day of the month. For example, the value of 6#3 in the day-of-week field means the third Friday of the month (6 is the day Friday, and #3 is the third Friday in the month). Likewise, 2#1 is the first Monday of the month, and 4#5 is the fifth Wednesday of the month. If you specify #5, and there are not five given days of the week in a particular month, then no firing will occur that month.
Use the C character for the day-of-month and day-of-week fields. This character is shorthand for calendar, which means that values are calculated against the associated calendar, if any. If no calendar is associated, then it is equivalent to having an all-inclusive calendar. A value of 5C in the day-of-month field means the first day included by the calendar on or after the fifth. A value of 1C in the day-of-week field means the first day included by the calendar on or after Sunday.
Save Metrics
Checking the Save Metrics box will save detailed metrics reports for your Workflow, including the Job Build Summary, Performance Graph, and Activity Detail reports. Metrics reports can be viewed in the Metrics folder located within the Report Explorer screen. For more information, see a detailed explanation of metrics reports in Accessing Build Logs, Reports, and Metrics.