Creating Submit Frames
A submit frame is a set of rules that control the repetitive execution of a process. When a process definition is submitted and a submit frame is used, the corresponding processes are restarted automatically by a process server according to the frequency defined in the submit frame.
Simple multiple executions of a process definition can also be achieved by specifying a recurrence. A recurrence is specified for one process when you submit it. A submit frame is an object that can be reused for multiple processes.
A submit frame is made of one or more submit frame elements defining the cycle. If more than one submit frame element is specified, the total cycle is a union of all submit frame elements.
Submit frames are part of the Environment section in the navigation bar.
Built-in Submit Frames
The following standard submit frames are provided with Redwood Server:
| Submit Frame | Maintenance process | Submits (Default) |
|---|---|---|
| System_Aggregate_HistorySubmitFrame | System_Aggregate_History - Collects history data for processes and chains | Daily |
| System_AggregateMonitorDataSubmitFrame | System_AggregateMonitorData - Collects history data for monitor values | Hourly |
| System_CollectStatisticsSubmitFrame | System_CollectStatistics - Collects system statistics. | Daily |
| System_DeleteJobFilesSubmitFrame | System_DeleteJobFiles - Deletes the output and log files of deleted processes | Every 15 minutes |
| System_Ignored_Alert_ReporterSubmitFrame | System_Ignored_Alert_Reporter - Creates reports for the number of ignored alerts | Every 15 minutes |
| System_MonitorTablesSubmitFrame | System_MonitorTables - Adds the database table row counts to the monitor tree | Daily |
| System_ProcessKeepClausesSubmitFrame | System_ProcessKeepClauses - Deletes processes and chain processes, according to their keep clauses | Every 15 minutes |
| System_SynchronizeBackgroundJobsSubmitFrame | not used by any system process definition | Daily |
| System_UpdateJobStatisticsSubmitFrame | System_UpdateJobStatistics - Updates the runtime statistics of processes and chains | Every 15 minutes |
Tabs & Fields
The following table illustrates the fields of each tab of Submit Frames editor dialogs.
| Tab | Field | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Submit Frame | Partition | The Partition where you wish to store the submit frame. |
| Submit Frame | Name | The name of the submit frame can contain any combination of US ASCII letters, digits, and underscores; limited to 80 characters. |
| Submit Frame | Application | The Application of the submit frame. |
| Submit Frame | Description | The description of the submit frame can contain any combination of printable UTF-8 characters, limited to 255 characters. |
| Submit Frame | End Date-<time zone> | An optional date/time at which this submit frame should end or stop submitting new processes. Default is empty which means always open submitting processes. |
| Documentation | Documentation | A comment about the object, can be used for documentation purposes. |
| Elements | Description | Short description of the submit frame element can contain any combination of printable UTF-8 characters, limited to 255 characters. |
| Elements | Defined by > All openings of time window | Specify a time window; at every opening of the time window a new process will be submitted. |
| Elements | Defined by > Interval > Submit every <n> <t> | Cycle of <n> * t, example every 5 days will submit a process every five days. |
| Elements | Defined by > Interval > Preserve Times | Follow DST changes. Example a process is submitted every 2 hours, original request time was 8:00 AM, it will always run every day at 8:00AM, even after DST change. |
| Elements | Defined by > Interval > During Time Window | Time window during which the submit frame is used. |
| Elements | Defined by > Interval > Start Time <time zone> | Start time (in time zone) of the process. |
| Elements | Skip when time window is closed | The cycle should skip closed times of the specified time window. |
| Submits At | Overview of every future submittal of a process. | |
| Security | * | This is where you can specify who can access/change/remove the submit frame. |
Submit Frame Elements
A submit frame is made of one or more submit frame elements defining the cycle. If more than one submit frame element is specified, the total cycle is a union of all submit frame elements. If submit frame elements overlap, only one process is created.
This means that if a submit frame has two elements, every hour and every 3 days, for example, the process will run every hour of every day. In this example, every time a process in the recurrence has reached a final status (which does not break the submit frame according to Restart Behavior ), Redwood Server evaluates the submit frame based on the first process of the recurrence, checking the union of all its elements and determining the next date/time it can submit a new process for. The equation is as follows:
<submit_base_time> + (<n> x <amount> <units>)
<submit_base_time>- the original date/time the first process of the recurrence was started<n>- the number of cycles required to get a date/time after the time now<amount>- the you entered in the every field in the submit frame element<unit>- the time unit you chose in the Unit field (seconds, minutes, hours ...)
The every 3 days element is irrelevant, in this case; no additional processes will be created based on this element because it overlaps every time with the other. Note also, that if the process takes longer than <amount> <unit>, in this case 1 hour, or for any other reason goes past the start time of the following process, the process will be skipped.
Another example: a submit frame has two elements, every hour during time window System_Week_WorkDay and every 3 days. With this submit frame, processes will run every hour during System_Week_WorkDay and every time the following equation results in a week-end day, the process will run on that day:
<day_of_original_request> + (<n> x 3 days)
In fact, in this example it means every third Sunday and Saturday.
note
Changes to the submit frame will affect the current process if it has not yet started, otherwise it will be the next.
tip
Use the Submits At tab in the submit frame editor and Submit Summary in the submit wizard to make sure your process is scheduled for the appropriate date/time.
Compensating DST Changes
Note that specifying a submit frame using <amount> <unit>, where <unit> is smaller than a day, it will not always recognise DST changes. If you want the submit frame to recognise DST changes, check the Preserve times checkbox on the submit frame. Alternatively, you specify a time window in the All openings of time window field; the process will be rescheduled for each opening of the time window.
Preserve Times will only be relevant for submit frame elements that satisfy all of the following conditions:
- An hours, minutes or seconds type of interval.
- The number of seconds evenly divides the number of minutes in a day or the number of hours evenly divides the number of hours in a day;.
- No start time is specified on the submit frame element.
For hourly intervals, every 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, or 12 hours are satisfactory.
Submit Frame Recurrences
When you submit a process with a submit frame, the process and all subsequent processes based on this process form a recurrence. The processes of the recurrence have a pattern in common, which uses as the base time the original scheduled time of the first process. Note that this is the time at which the submit wizard was opened, the actual Scheduled Start time of the process may differ, depending on how long it took you to actually submit the process.
The default value for the pre-submit count in the submit wizard is set to 1 when a submit frame is used, you can override this with the DefaultPreSubmitregistry entry. The default value is 10 when no submit frames are used. At every system startup, an operator message is created if this key does not exist or is invalid.
See the Managing Recurrences topic for more information on recurrences.
note
Note that processes with a restart count do not wait for each other, Redwood Server simply makes sure that <n> processes in a non-final state are in the recurrence.
note
When you pre-submit more than 100 processes, you will get a warning. The maximum number of processes you ca pre-submit is set to 5000.
note
You cannot pre-submit more than 5000 processes, as this can have serious consequences in terms of performance.
Preview
You can now get a preview of when a process would be submitted if you were to submit it as this very moment by navigating to "Environment > Submit Frames" and choosing the submit frame. The preview is displayed in the form of a calendar, blue marks appear on the days the process will get submitted, if you choose a day at which a process will be submitted, you can see the times. You can see a summary of submits for the current month on the right-hand side of the calendar.
Context-Menu
Submit frames support the following context-menu actions:
| Action | Description |
|---|---|
| Edit Security | Edit the security of the submit frame |
| Duplicate | Make a copy of the submit frame to create a similar one |
| Delete | Delete the submit frame |
| Export > Export | Export the submit frame into a CAR file |
| Export > Export with related objects | Export the submit frame into a CAR file including referenced objects |
| Promote > Promote to system | Promote the object to a remote system |
| Promote > Edit further then promote | Edit the export rule set prior to promoting |
| Promote | Promote the submit frame to another Redwood Server instance |
| Edit | Edit the submit frame |
| Show permalinks | Show links that can be used from third party applications to link to the object |
| Add to navigation bar | Add the current object to the navigation bar |
| New submit frame | Create a new submit frame |
| Filter > New Filter | Create a new submit frame filter |
| Filter > Edit Filter | Edit current submit frame filter |
| Filter > Delete | Delete current submit frame filter |
| Filter > Duplicate Filter | Create a copy of the filter |
| Filter > Export Filter | Export the filter into a CAR file |
| Filter > Add to navigation bar | Add the filter to a navigation bar |
| Filter > Create filter from search | Create a filter from the current IntelliSearch query |
Finding Submit Frames
You can search for submit frames using filters and the Search Submit Frames box on the Submit Frames tab. This box is known as the IntelliSearch box and located under your username on the top right-hand side of the user interface. Filters allow you to specify a list of objects with static criteria. IntelliSearch allows you to specify complex queries in a simple way using prefixes. Prefixes are used to specify which property you are searching in and have short as well as long syntaxes. For example, if you want to display all submit frames with the term import in the comment, you would use the search criteria as follows:
c:import
You can search more than one property, as follows:
c:import n:Bi
note
No spaces should be entered before or after the colon (: ).
See the Advanced Object Search for more information.
The following table illustrates the available prefixes for submit frames:
| Prefixes | Description |
|---|---|
| n, name | searches the name property |
| c, com, comment | searches the documentation property |
| d, desc, description | searches the description property |
| cb, changedbefore | (internal) search for submit frames that changed before a certain ISO-8601 period |
Deleting Submit Frames
You can only delete submit frames when no other objects relate to them. For example, if there are processes that have run with the submit frame, the submit frame cannot be deleted until all processes that ran with it have been deleted. You can see all processes that relate to the submit frame in Related Objects in the lower detail pane and on the show page.
The table in related objects contains three columns:
- Type - the type of object with a link to it
- Related Object - the name of the object with a link to it
- Used As - objects can sometimes be used in different roles
Security
| Privilege | Description |
|---|---|
| SubmitFrame.Create | Create submit frames |
| SubmitFrame.Delete | Delete submit frames |
| SubmitFrame.Edit | Edit submit frames |
| SubmitFrame.View | Access submit frames |
You can grant privileges on two levels, Access and Admin; a privilege granted on Admin level allows the grantee to grant the privilege to other users. These privileges can be granted per partition or system-wide.
The Security tab allows you to specify which users can access, edit, and delete the submit frame.
Generated Submit Frames
Submit frames are automatically generated when you schedule a process with a recurrence pattern, as shown in the submit wizard, for example.
Note that the automatically generated submit frames are named SF_System_<number>. They will be modified as soon as the recurrence pattern is modified, Redwood would like to strongly discourage you from using automatically generated submit frames with other objects.
You edit generated submit frames by changing the recurrence pattern of the recurrence.
Procedure
- Choose "Environment > Submit Frames".
- Choose Refresh to see all existing submit frames.
- Choose New Submit Frame to create a submit frame.
- Fill in the details, refer to the section below.
- Choose Save and Close to save the submit frame.
Submit Frame
- Name - The name of the submit frame.
- Application - The name of the application used to group this object.
- Description - The description of the submit frame.
- End Date - A date at which the submit frame ends, no new processes will be automatically submitted after this date.
Documentation
- Documentation - A comment about a submit frame.
Elements
- Description - The description of the submit frame element.
- All openings of time window - the submit frame element is defined by a time window. A process is submitted every time the time window opens.
- Interval
- Submit every - The cycle interval in seconds, minutes, days or months. The unit of measure is specified in the Unit field.
- Unit - The unit of measure: seconds, minutes, days or months.
- During Time Window - An optional time window during which the submit frame interval can generate submits.
- Start Time - The start time of the process, this is only available when the Unit is set to Days, Months or Years.
- Skip when time window is closed - If this option is selected, the submit frame element must fall inside the defined time window. If it is not selected, the first submit frame element occurs as soon as the time window is opened. This option is only applicable if During Time Window is defined in the submit frame element or a time window is defined on the process definition.
note
Skip when time window is closed has an influence on the process when the latter has a time window, defined in the submit frame element or on the process definition.
Example
- Choose "Environment > Submit Frames" in the Navigation bar.
- Choose the New Submit Frame button and fill in the values below for the Submit Frame tab.
- Choose the Add button and fill in the values for the Elements tab.
- Choose Save & Close to save the new submit frame and close the edit window.
Submit Frame tab
Name: EveryHour
Description: Every hour
Elements tab
Every number of: 1
Unit: Hours
Must Fit Time Window: Unchecked
See Also
- Creating Submit Frames - video
- Defining Execution Times with Time Windows
- Using Recurrences
- Restart Behavior
SubmitFrame