In this example, we will create a task that makes a backup of your Microsoft Word documents and other text documents by zipping the documents together into one file and placing it onto floppy disk every Friday night at 11PM.
WHAT'S COVERED:
* Step by step creation of a managed task using the Add Task Wizard
* Introduction to triggers, with emphasis on the Schedule Watcher
* Introduction to building a task steps with the Task Builder
* Using the Zip Files and Move Files actions to compress and move files
* Using wildcards to include more than
one file in a step
NOTE: This example assumes that the Add Task Wizard is used to create tasks. This is the default behaviour. To ensure the Add Task Wizard is used, go to the System | Options menu in the AutoMate Task Administrator, and from the General tab, make sure "Use Add Task Wizard when adding tasks" is selected.
Step 1:
Click the New button from the toolbar of the AutoMate Task Administrator.
Step 2:
The Add Task Wizard should appear. Click
the Next button to move to the next page.
Step 3:
Enter a name for your task. For
example, "Weekly Document Archive". This is the name by which
the task will be referred to ask in the Task Administrator. Click
the Next button.
Step 4:
Here we can apply one or more triggers to the task. A
trigger is an event or condition that occurs on your system that will
cause the task to start. For
our example, we want a particular time once a week to trigger
our task. Therefore,
we need to add a "Schedule
Watcher". Click
the Add button to display a list of available triggers.
Step 5:
From the list of available triggers,
click Schedule Watcher, then click OK.
Step 6:
You are now looking at the Schedule Watcher properties. From
here you can configure a schedule for the task to trigger upon. For
our example, we want to trigger every Friday night at 11PM. To
do this, change Interval to "Specific days of the week". This
will allow us to choose what days of the week we want the task to run.
Ensure
"Every" is set to 1 week. This
will make the schedule repeat every week. Select
the "Friday" option. You
could select more than one day of week if you wish, but since we only
want a backup once a week, Friday is sufficient. Next,
enter the date of the day you wish the task to run for the first time.
For our
example, we'll set it to November 29, 2002, which is the first Friday
of that week, at 11:00 PM. (Note
that by clicking the down-arrow button of the date field, a small calender
appears to aid in choosing a date).
Step 7:
Next, we should make sure that the task is going to reschedule the way
we'd like it to. Normally,
once AutoMate triggers a task based on the Schedule Watcher, the task
will automatically schedule itself to start again based on the options
you've selected. You
can modify exactly how AutoMate does this rescheduling by selecting the
Rescheduling tab on the Schedule Watcher. For
our example, make sure Immediately Run The Task" and "Relative
to the originally set time" are selected. This
will cause the task to immediately run the task if it is late when AutoMate
starts, and reschedule the task from the original time it was meant to
trigger. Once
you're finished, click OK.
Step 8:
Now, the Triggers part of the Add Task Wizard should contain your one Schedule
Watcher trigger. Click the Next button to move to the next page of the
wizard.
Step 9:
Now, we need to build the steps of the task. This
is where you specify exactly what the task is to do when it is started.
This is
done using the AutoMate
Task Builder, which is an editor made specifically for creating and
debugging AutoMate Tasks. Click
the "Create Steps" button to start the AutoMate Task Builder.
Step 10:
The Task Builder provides many functions to help you in creating and debugging
your task. For
this example, we will use only a very small part of its capabilities.
The left
side of the Task Builder contains the "Available Actions". Within
this window are all the actions
that AutoMate can do. The
right hand side contains all the steps that the task will execute when
the task runs. Steps
are executed one after the other in the order they appear on the right
side. Our
task is going to consist of only two steps: Zip Files and Move Files.
Our first
step will be to create a zip file that contains the documents to be archived.
Find the
"Zip Files" action under Available Actions by expanding the
Compression group (either by clicking the + to the left of the word "Compression"
or by double-clicking on "Compression"). Double-click
"Zip Files", or drag it to the right hand side by holding the
left-mouse button over the action name, sliding the mouse over the steps
section of the Task Builder, and releasing the mouse button.
Step 11:
Most actions have properties you can set to further configure exactly what
the step is to do. In
our case, we need to tell the Zip Files action to zip only files in our
My Documents directory that end with .doc and .txt (the two extensions
that Microsoft Word and standard text files have respectively). We
also need to tell it what the name of the zip file is and where AutoMate
should put it. First,
we'll select the files we need to zip. Click
the open folder button to the right of the "Files to zip:" area.
Browse
to your My Documents folder and select a document. Click
OK. The
full path to that document will appear in the "Files to zip"
field.
Normally this would be sufficient if all we needed to do was backup only
one file. However,
we want to backup all documents and text files. To
do this, we need to use a wildcard. A
wildcard character will cause AutoMate to use any file that matches our
mask, replacing an asterisk with any characters required to make the file
match. In our case, we need to match any file that ends with .doc or a
.txt, but is still in our My Documents folder. Start
by highlighting all the text that appears after the path to My Documents.
Step 12:
Replace the highlighted text with *.doc, and vertical bar, and then *.txt.
Remember
that an asterisk means to use any file as long as it ends matches the
rest of the text, in this case .doc or .txt. The
vertical bar is used to separate multiple masks.
Step 13:
Next we need to specify where to place the zip file, and what to do name
it. We'll
call it archive.zip, and place it in our My Documents folder. Click
to open folder button to the right of the "Zip file" field,
and browse to My Documents. In
the "File name" field, type in "archive.zip". And
click OK. Your
Zip Files Action window should now look like this:
Step 14:
We'll need to duplicate the name of the zip file for our next step. So
before clicking the OK button, right-click on the "Zip file"
field, and select "Select All". Right-click
on the field again and select "Copy". This
will place the full path to the zip file on the clipboard so we can use
it in the next step. Click
OK.
Step 15:
Our complete Zip Files step should now be in the Task Builder. When
the task runs, AutoMate will zip all our documents into a zip file named
archives.zip. Now
we need to move it from our My Documents folder and onto the floppy drive.
From the
Available Actions, find the Move File action in the FIle group. Double-click
or drag to add it to your task.
Step 16:
Here we need to specify what file should be moved, and where to. Since
the file we want to move doesn't exist yet (it won't exist until we run
the task), attempting to browse to the file isn't going to help us. Luckily
we copied the text from the previous step. Right-click
over the "Source:" field and select Paste. The
path should automatically be entered into the field for you. Next,
specify the destination by clicking the open folder button to the right
of "Destination". Browse
to the floppy drive (be sure there is a disk in there!). In
the "File name" field, enter "archive.zip". Click
OK.
Step 17:
Thats it! Those
two simple steps will create a zip file backup of all the Microsoft Word
and standard text files from your My Documents folder, and then copy the
zip file to a floppy drive. This
part of the task is now complete. Click
the "Update And Save" button from the toolbar to save your changes
and close the Task Builder. You
will be returned to the Add Task Wizard.
Step 18:
Now that we are finished adding the task steps, click the Next button.
The next
page is used on Windows 2000/NT/XP to specify whether or not the task
should run when a workstation is logged off or locked. For
this example, leave the defaults: the task will not run when the workstation
is logged off, but will run invisibly when the workstation is locked.
Click the
Next button.
Step 19:
The final page of the Add Task Wizard provides a summary of the task you
built. Click
the Finish button. The
completed Managed Task now appears in your Task Administrator. Every
Friday at 11PM, the task will execute, zipping up files and placing the
finished product onto your floppy disk. Just
be sure to have a floppy disk in your drive before you leave on Friday!
See Also:
Introduction to the Task Builder
Introduction to the Task Administrator