Skybot Scheduler Release Notes Following is a list of the new features and enhancements included in each release of Skybot Scheduler. Skybot Scheduler 3.5 Skybot Scheduler 3.5 (May 19, 2014 update) Informatica Cloud Task ID Removed the requirement to enter a Task ID when working with the Informatica Cloud Task built-in command. Skybot Scheduler 3.5 (April 2, 2014 update) IBM PowerLinux support You can now install and run Skybot Scheduler on IBM PowerLinux servers. Skybot Scheduler 3.5 (February 20, 2014 update) SAP Process Chains There is a new built-in command that allows you to run SAP process chains from a Skybot job. Support for csh/tcsh Improvements were made to make it easier to use csh or tcsh as the shell for running jobs on UNIX and Linux agent systems. Clearing prerequisites You can now send a request to the Skybot web service that will clear all prerequisites for a job or job suite. For more information, see the online Support topic, Running the Skybot Scheduler Web Service. Also, a clearallprerequisites action was added to the jobservice.bat and jobservice.sh files. Internet Explorer 11 We discovered some issues with running Skybot Scheduler in IE 11. Those issues have been resolved. Page 1 of 6 Updated May 16, 2014
Skybot Scheduler 3.5 Dashboard The Dashboard page has been enhanced to give you easy access to even more information about your jobs and your system, and with greater flexibility in how the data is displayed. Your view of the Dashboard can be customized. You can choose the chart size, which charts you want to see, and the order in which they re displayed. Now, simply clicking the bars or data points in any of the dashboard charts takes you to the appropriate history page for that data. And, the history page will already be filtered based on what you clicked. The Dashboard charts are now rendered in HTML, so you ll be able to view them even if your device doesn t support Adobe Flash. Load Balancing Two new agent group types were added. They allow you to manage heavy workloads and provide a level of automatic failover when an individual agent is not available. Using the various types of agent groups, you can: Run a job on every agent in a group (All Agents group). This is useful for jobs such as backups. NEW! Run a job on whichever agent in the group has the lowest utilization percentage (Utilization Balanced group). This balances the load between the agents in the group. NEW! Run a job on a specific agent with other agents as backup in case the original agent is unavailable (Preferred Agent group). This creates an automatic failover for critical jobs that must run. Built-in Commands There are two new built-in commands: Web Service on Agent This built-in command allows you to create jobs that send web service requests from a Skybot Scheduler agent. Informatica Cloud This built-in command allows you to schedule jobs that run tasks on an Informatica Cloud server. File Transfer Systems When creating file transfer systems that use SFTP for the transfers, you can now choose between two authentication types for the remote server: username/ password or public/private key. Job History Filters The available date filters for the Job History page have been expanded to include filtering by a specific date/time range and filtering for a set number of days. While it is not possible to disable the date filter, you can see as much history as possible by setting the Last x days filter to the maximum of 999 days. Job Logs The details in the job logs now contain the time the job ended. Also, you can specify whether or not to send job logs via email for jobs with a status of completed, failed, or canceled, and for job suites with a status of member failed or member canceled. Next Scheduled Run Time A column showing the next scheduled run time has been added to the Jobs and Job Suites list pages. You can sort and filter the lists by the information in this new column. Page 2 of 6
Job Setup Report Additional information about Informatica Workflow commands has been added to the output of this report. It is now possible to create a new Informatica Workflow command using the information displayed about an existing one in the report. SAP NetWeaver Load Balancing Groups By using the new Connection Type selection, you can configure the SAP system definitions in Skybot Scheduler to either a specific instance of SAP on an application server or to an SAP load balancing group. SAP Reports You can use Skybot Scheduler to send reports that are generated in SAP to an email address. The Spool List Recipient in the SAP NetWeaver job definition governs this and now allows you to add either an SAP user or an email address. Cancel Queued Notifications If you re using Skybot Scheduler events as prerequisites to jobs on a remote Robot/SCHEDULE server, you may run into instances where you need to cancel queued notifications on the Skybot side. You can now accomplish this from the Skybot Event History page. Skybot Scheduler 3.4 Interface to Robot/SCHEDULE This version of Skybot Scheduler supports reactivity with Robot/SCHEDULE. To start, add your Robot/SCHEDULE server as a remote server in Skybot Scheduler. After you do that, you can set it up so that status changes coming from the Robot/SCHEDULE server can serve as prerequisites for your Skybot Scheduler jobs and job suites. Also, your Skybot Scheduler objects (jobs, job suites, and member jobs) can have dependencies in Robot/SCHEDULE. The reactivity runs both ways between the systems. Web Service A web service feature has been added to Skybot Scheduler. The web service listens on the same port as the Skybot Scheduler UI, uses HTTP basic authentication, and returns XML responses. There is also a command line client on the agents to help in calling the web service feature. Following are the objects and the actions you can perform on them using the Skybot Scheduler web service: Agents: Hold job queue, release job queue, restart agent, and stop agent. Jobs: Hold job, release job, run job, create job, and delete job. Job Suites: Hold job suite, release job suite, run job suite, create job suite, and delete job suite. Member Jobs: Create member job and delete member job. For complete information on using the Skybot Scheduler web service, see the online Support topic: Running the Skybot Scheduler Web Service. Silent Installs and Uninstalls on Windows You can silently install the Skybot Scheduler server, install agents, and uninstall the software (server and agents) on Windows servers. Also, the list of switches that are available to configure a silent install has been expanded. Click here to see the online Support topic on installing the software. Tiered Licensing The changes in the Skybot Scheduler interface for tiered licensing give you a simple, easy-to-read view of the status of your licensing (server, agents, and trial licenses). From one page, you can view and manage all of your licenses. Page 3 of 6
Indicator in Forecast for Held/Skipped jobs Held and skipped jobs have always been included in the Forecast. Now, there s a new column on the Forecast page that indicates which jobs are Held/Skipped. Additionally, a Held/Skipped column was added to the Forecast Report, so you can easily see which forecasted job runs are scheduled to be held or skipped. Skybot Agent Transponder When you start the Skybot Agent Transponder, which you can now do from the Start menu in Windows, an icon for it is added to your System Tray. If you don t have the necessary permissions to run the Agent Transponder, Skybot Scheduler can add them when you start the Transponder. For more information, see the online Support topic: Skybot Agent Transponder Overview. Restoring backups It is now possible to successfully restore a backup from a previous version of Skybot Scheduler. Roles When creating or editing roles, the authority to hold or release a job is now part of the Execute authority for Secure Objects instead of the Change authority. Therefore, you can now create a role that allows users to run, hold, or release a job (Execute), but not to make any edits to the job (Change). Skybot Scheduler 3.3 Oracle interface The new Skybot Scheduler Oracle Interface allows for submitting concurrent requests on an Oracle EBS (E-Business Suite) server as a command within a Skybot job. Multiple Oracle System Definitions may be defined in Skybot to run requests under various users or application settings. Requests may be submitted with a user-defined Program Name (request name) or the Skybot job name and its run number for ease of tracking on the Oracle system. New Security Report Skybot has a new Security Report. It lists all the roles that have been set up in Skybot. For each role, it shows the users who are assigned to that role. It also shows the Role s settings for Secured Areas, Actions, and Objects. Macintosh agents Skybot can automatically run your scheduled processes on Macintosh OSX systems after you install the Skybot Agent software. However, there is no Desktop integration, so you will need to use command line processing whenever you are using a Mac agent. Text matching for Return Codes The Return Code processing has been enhanced to allow you to specify text matching that can determine the pass/fail status of a command. Command retry options When adding commands to a Job, Member Job, or Command Set, click in the Failed Action column to set the action that should be taken if the command fails. In this same dialog box, you can use the Command Retry Options to indicate how many times the command should be retried and at what intervals. Emailing Reports When generating a report, you can name it and save it to a specific directory. You can also email it to yourself, a Notification List, or a specific email address. New Job History preference There is a new preference on the Job History page that allows you to exclude timed interval jobs from the display. Page 4 of 6
New filter on the Job History and Member Job History pages If you have selected Run Duration as one of the columns to view on the Job History and Member Job History pages, click the arrow in the column heading to filter the display by that column. Restart Job Suite after Member Job fails When a Member Job fails, you can go to the Member Job History page, right-click the Member Job, and mark it as Completed. This allows the Job Suite to restart. Delete source files after FTP transfer The File Transfer Command has a new option that allows you to specify that the source file should be deleted after the file has been transferred. Allow active FTP transfer rather than passive If you need Skybot FTP to transfer via active transfer rather than passive transfer, you can enable this by setting the following environment variable prior to the request: set SKYBOT_FTP_LOCAL_MODE=active Skybot Scheduler 3.2.2 Different email address for Notifications If the Authentication Configuration (in System Settings) is set to Use LDAP Authentication with User Authorization, the Skybot users and their email addresses are pulled from the LDAP server. However, for any particular user you can now specify an email address, other than the one from LDAP, to be used for notifications. Support for Agent clustering The settings for Agents now include an option that allows connecting agents with the same name to share the same agent definition. This supports agent clustering and high availability. Skipping Special Instances If the Job Suite that a Member Job belongs to has a Special Instance assigned to it, you can choose to skip the Member Job runtimes that either match or don t match the Special Instance run. Day of Period Special Instance type You can now select a Day of Period instance type for Special Instances (similar to the Day of Period scheduling type). Job Suites and Variables In the Job Suite settings, there is an option that allows you to select whether to use the Member Job s scheduled time or the Job Suite s scheduled time as the base date for the dynamic date Skybot variable calculation. Support for implicit FTPS The File Transfer Protocol page has a new setting that specifically allows for an implicit FTPS connection. Therefore, you can now connect to FTP servers that have been configured for either explicit or implicit SSL/TLS transfers. Improved Job auditing When a job is either put on hold or released, an audit entry is written that includes information on who performed the action. This can be viewed in Server History. Restoring backups If you must restore from an older backup, you can set an option to ignore all the missed jobs that are in the backup. Starting multiple Jobs When manually starting jobs, you can select multiple jobs and start them all at once instead of having to start each one individually. Page 5 of 6
Creating Member Jobs When you are creating a new Member Job for a Job Suite, there s a new option that allows you to create the Member Job by copying the common attributes of an existing individual job. Exporting Member Jobs Previously, when you exported a Job Suite, all of its Member Jobs were exported along with it. Now, you can export Member Jobs separately from the Job Suite they belong to. Creating Jobs from the Run Intercepted Jobs page There is now a Create Job button on the Run Intercepted Jobs page. Auto-refresh the Agent list The Preferences button on the Agent page includes an option to refresh the list automatically at a timed interval that you specify. Job History Report The total duration of each Job has been added to the Job History Report. About HelpSystems HelpSystems is a leading provider of systems management business intelligence, and security and compliance software. We help businesses reduce data center costs by improving operational control and delivery of IT services. Copyright HelpSystems, LLC. All trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Page 6 of 6