Introduction

This article contains the detailed instruction on using our new Workstation Scheduler functionality. The information contained here will help you set up “automation” for various scripts that you might want to run from your SDC workstation at periodical times. Ideally, the automated scripts should be scheduled to run sometime when you are not using the system so there is little overlap which will minimize the possibility of interrupting your workflow. There are 2 main components that are needed from the researcher’s side to set up this automation.

• .yaml schedule

• Windows' Task Scheduler

.yaml schedule

The purpose of the .yaml schedule is so that we have the timing of when to turn your workstation on/off so that we can manage resources effectively while still allowing you to schedule tasks. There are a couple things to make sure to include in the .yaml schedule. The YAML file can be named anything as long as it is located in the prefix Workstation-Schedules, for example s3://prod.sdc.dot.gov.team.acme-research-team/Workstation-Schedules.

• Workstation

  • Your workstation’s name. It should look something like ECSPWXXX01

• Timezone

  • Make sure the time zone you name here is the same one your workstation’s Task Scheduler is set to.

• Schedules For each schedule you need to include:

  • Day

    • Daily: When the value of Day is Daily the schedule will run every day at the Time specified

    • On a date: When the value of Day is an ISO formatted date the schedule will run on that date at the Time specified

    • Day of the week: When the value of Day is Sunday through Saturday the schedule will run on that day of the week at the Time specified

    • Day of the month: When the value of Day is an integer -1 through 31 the schedule will run on that day of the month at the Time specified (-1 will run on the last day of the month)

  • Time

    • The time of day that the schedule will start your workstation

    • Time should follow an HH:MM format in a 24 hour clock

  • Duration

    • To fill out the duration of your task you need to run it a few times manually to understand approximately how long it takes to complete. We recommend adding anywhere from 5 - 45 minutes to the longest runtime of 3 manually run trials depending on the runtime of your script (a few minutes to many hours) to get an upper bound that minimizes the risk of shutting down your workstation early. Use your judgement on how much time to add for extra padding on your script. If your task takes 5 minutes to complete at its longest, then a 5 minute buffer would likely be enough (so you would set the duration to 10 minutes). If your task takes 5+ hours to run at its longest, it would make sense to add.

    • Duration should follow an HH:MM format

Example of .yaml schedule

Once you have created the .yaml schedule, please save it in your team's s3 bucket.

Windows' Task Scheduler

The Task Scheduler is a program on Windows machines that allows for the scheduling of tasks to be run at a specific time. For this to work, the workstation needs to be on and running, which is what our Workstation Scheduler does. Below are some detailed instructions on how to set up the Task Scheduler on your workstation.

Note: For now, our Workstation Scheduler has an hourly granularity, meaning it will activate once an hour to check if your workstation needs to be activated. Because of the way our Workstation Scheduler works, you should only schedule tasks to activate at the ‘top’ of the hour. So, for example, when you’re scheduling a task on the Task Scheduler, it should be scheduled for the hour you want and no minutes (i.e. 11:00, 2:00, 4:00, etc.)

Instructions for setting up a task on the Task Scheduler

• Open the start menu on your workstation and type ‘task scheduler’, click on the icon.

Open

• Click on the ‘Create Task’ button

Open

• Fill out relevant information about the task under the General tab:

  • Give the task an appropriate name

  • Add a short description of what the task does

  • Select the option Run whether user is logged in or not, then select Run with the highest privileges

  • Change the Configure for: option if necessary

• Next, select the Triggers tab and press New

• Select the appropriate trigger based on how often you want your script to run, we recommend having your script run at some time when there will be no one else on the workstation (early morning or late night) if it is possible. Also, make sure to schedule the task at the 'top' of the hour.

  • Keep track of the trigger times and dates you set up as they will be important in the next step of the setup.

• Select the options that match the frequency of when you need the task performed

  • Daily, weekly, monthly, etc. What time? How often?

  • Selecting the Synchronize across time zones option sets the time to UTC. If your workstation is using a time zone other than UTC and you should leave the box unchecked. Ensure to specify the time zone your workstation is using in the .yaml scheduler file later.

    • Keep track of the time zone that you are using for the task scheduler.

• Next, select the Actions tab and press New:

• Select the appropriate Action, usually Start a program, and find the program using the browse functionality

• The Start in value is the directory in which the application/program/script starts. This matters for when it calls other resources. If it calls somecustom.exe that's not in that Start in directory, it won't be found, and your application/program/script will error out. If you call absolutely everything by path, it shouldn't matter.

• Next you will want to add some options in the Settings tab of the menu.

  • The most important option here is the Run task as soon as possible after a scheduled start is missed. This will allow us to mitigate potential problems that arise with the timing of the automated tasks.

• You may also add extra options within the Conditions and Settings tabs that may be useful for your particular script or program.

When the task is set up and configured to your liking, press the OK button on the bottom of the window to create the task and have it "automated" on your computer.

Deleting a Task

To delete a task you just need to re-open the task scheduler and find it in the task scheduler library, right click on the task, and click delete. You can also do things like run the task manually, end, and disable the task temporarily.