General

The Class Task Manager enables you to run many reports, statistics and processes at any scheduled time, or at regular intervals in a continuous unattended run (eg. over lunch or overnight).
The Task Manager, on completion, can automatically set the selection dates forward by the period of the schedule, eg. weekly/monthly.
This allows reports/processes to be run fully automatically at the pre-set intervals, every day/week/month/year.
Excel output can be either displayed and saved, printed or emailed.
For example, the weekly statistics could be automatically produced every Monday at 6AM and emailed to all recipients.

Schedule Intervals

Multiple schedules can be created, eg. 2 x daily admissions schedules, 3 x weekly admissions, monthly and annual accounts, marketing monthly etc. For example, if a document batch print was to be run 3 times a day (morning, afternoon and evening), then 3 schedules could be created, each one starting at a different time, eg. 11AM, 15PM, 19PM.
The sole function of these 3 schedules could be just to process the documents. Other schedules could be built to do other daily tasks.

In a similar way, there could be several weekly reports, eg. one running every Monday morning, and one running every Friday afternoon.

Creating a schedule

A warning message is displayed advising of key issues when running the schedule - PLEASE READ:

Schedules for individual or "All" users may be displayed.

A new schedule is always created in the user's name, and that user is the only person allowed to run that schedule.
There is no function that allows the running of "All" schedules.

Enter Name & Description:

Tab to the 'Tasks' tab and "Add" a report.

There are 5 categories and a variety of report types and reports (see list below):

Add schedules required:

Output

Screen/Printer/Email (users with MS Exchange Server only).

If email is selected, a warning will display:

This clearly advises that unattended emailing, in practice, requires the use of a Microsoft Exchange server.
This is a result of a security patch issued by Microsoft which releases a warning that a "third party" product is trying to access Outlook (Class!). This warning has to be individually responded to or the email will fail.
For users of MS Exchange server, MS have provided a patch which allows this warning to be suppressed.
(Please contact the support desk if you need any clarification in this area).
Without the suppression of the warning message, the schedule will fail.

Save File:

If the report is to be saved, enter the destination file details.
Excel extensions are not required (eg. .xls) as the system will automatically append this.

On selecting OK (first time around), the system automatically displays the "Edit Criteria" screen to enable a check to be made that the variables are correct. (Only a selected range of criteria is selected).

Advance dates on the schedule after completion:
If set, on successful completion, the "criteria" dates will be rolled forward according to the schedule interval eg. a daily schedule will roll dates +1 day, and a weekly schedule will roll the dates +1 week etc.

If a schedule is started by hand, ie. "Run Now", dates are not automatically rolled forward; instead a prompt is displayed asking whether this is required.

The example below shows a mix of admissions, marketing and accounting processes, but if required these could have been 3 separate schedules.

Schedule:

The range of options is self-apparent and should be set as required.
At any stage the schedule can be "Reset" and the variables re-entered.

Log:

Start scheduler running:

The process will start in accordance with the schedule.
If the scheduled time has already passed, the process will start immediately.

Once started, the process can be left running indefinitely.
The display above will be updated automatically.
This is the only item that needs to be kept running.
Class can be closed in the normal manner.
The Task Manager has been designed in this manner to prevent unauthorised access to Class, eg. overnight.

Running a schedule now:

On completion, the system will want to know if the "schedule" date is to be rolled forward.

How long did the process take?