Previous Next
Opalis Integration Server > Foundation Objects > Scheduling > Monitor Date/Time

Monitor Date/Time
The Monitor Date/Time object triggers Policies at a time or interval that you specify. Use the Monitor Date/Time object to trigger your Policies at a specific time once a day, week, or month. You can also schedule Policies to be triggered when a specific number of seconds has passed since the last trigger, or immediately after the Policy is deployed.
Which system time does the Monitor Date/Time object verify?
The Monitor Date/Time object uses the system clock of the operating system on the computer that runs the Action Server, and not Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), to verify the Policy’s launch time. This enables the Monitor Date/Time object to function in virtual machine environments, and to continue running even when the system clock is adjusted because of the move into or out of Daylight Savings Time. However, if a Policy is supposed to start during an hour that is skipped when the system clock is adjusted forwards by one hour, that starting time is skipped, and the Policy starts at the next scheduled time. If a Policy is supposed to start during an hour that occurs twice because the system clock is adjusted backwards by one hour, the Policy launches twice.
Depending on the practices in your timezone, the usual official time to change the system clocks at the start or finish of Daylight Savings Time is 2:00 a.m., or 02:00 hours. Opalis Software Inc. recommends that you configure a Schedule to prevent your Policies from being skipped or processed twice when the system clock changes.
The Monitor Date/Time object and prohibited times
The Monitor Date/Time object becomes inactive when the Schedule does not allow the Policy to run.
How it is used
The Monitor Date/Time object is best suited for scenarios where you need to run routines regularly that do not rely on events in other systems. For example, nightly backup procedures or periodically reading and processing mail in a customer service inbox.
Additional use cases
Creating a Schedule with conditional links
To use a Schedule, create one according to the instructions below. Then, in your Policy, insert the Monitor Date/Time object as the first object and configure how often it should start the Policy. Then insert a Check Schedule object. Configure the Check Schedule object to verify the Schedule that you created. The Monitor Date/Time object starts according to its configured interval and passes the Policy execution to the Check Schedule object. The Check Schedule object verifies that the Policy is allowed to run at the current time.
If the Policy is permitted to run at that time, the Check Schedule object returns a Published Data value of True. It passes the Policy execution to the next object if there is a link to the next object with a trigger condition of “Conforms to schedule from Check Schedule equals true”. If the Policy is not permitted to run at that time, the Check Schedule object returns a Published Data value of False. It passes the Policy execution to the next object if there is a link to the next object with a trigger condition of “Conforms to schedule from Check Schedule equals false”. This is useful when you want to implement conditional link branches according to the results of the Schedule verification.
Creating a Schedule without conditional links
If your Policy does not use conditional link branches, or if you do not want to process any of your Policy if the Schedule does not permit it, you can assign a Schedule directly to a Policy. See Assigning Schedules to Policies for instructions.
Configuration
To configure the Monitor Date/Time object you need to determine the time or interval you want the Policy to trigger on.
Details Tab
 
At
Select an absolute time for the Policy to run. The Monitor Date/Time object will trigger every day at the time that you specify.
Every [x] days [y] hours [z] minutes
Select to specify intervals of days, hours, and minutes for the Policy to run.
Starting - Select to specify the number of minutes past the hour to trigger the Policy. This option is only available if you have specified 0 minutes and at least 1 day or 1 hour.
At time slices within the hour - Select to trigger the Policy at times that are multiples of minutes you have specified. This option is only available when 0 days and 0 hours are specified. For example, if minutes is set to 15 then the Monitor Date/Time object will trigger at 0, 15, 30, 45 minutes past each hour.
Trigger immediately - Select to trigger the Policy immediately after deploying.
Every [x] seconds
Select to specify the interval, in seconds, between each time the Policy is executed.
Configuring time and intervals
The Monitor Date/Time object accepts the following inputs when configuring times and intervals:
 
Unit
Accepted Input
Seconds
5 - 300
Minutes
0 - 59 (0 is allowed only when hours/days are also specified)
Hours
0 - 23 (0 is allowed when days/minutes are also specified)
Days
0 - 48 (0 is allowed when hours/minutes are also specified)
Time slices
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30
Available Published Data
This object does not generate Published Data.
Common Published Data

Previous Next