A trigger specifies times and/or events that trigger the launching of one or more tasks.
When a trigger is satisfied, Universal Controller launches the tasks specified in the trigger. Each trigger can have an unlimited number of tasks associated with it. All of the specified tasks are run each time the trigger is satisfied. If you want to specify dependencies such as "run Task B only if Task A fails," create a Workflow, which is a series of inter-connected tasks.
A built-in trigger variable is available for returning the trigger name. Additional built-in variables are supported for specific trigger types.
Trigger Type | Usage |
|---|---|
Trigger one or more tasks based on the creation, deletion, or change of a file on a particular machine. | |
Trigger one or more tasks based on the status of one or more application resources. | |
Trigger one or more tasks based on multiple file monitoring, task monitoring, variable monitoring, and/or email monitoring events. | |
Specify dates and times, using Cron syntax, at which a task will be triggered. | |
Trigger one or more Email Monitor tasks. | |
Launch task(s) immediately, while setting or overriding the value of one or more user-defined variables specified in the task(s). | |
Trigger one or more tasks based on the conditions specified in an associated Task Monitor task. | |
Set up a one-time trigger for a task, based on a single date and time. | |
Specify dates and times at which a task will be triggered. | |
Trigger one or more Universal Monitor tasks. | |
Trigger one or more tasks based on the conditions specified in an associated Variable Monitor task. |
There are multiple ways to create a trigger:
For detailed information on creating a trigger for a specific trigger type, click that trigger type in the Trigger Types table, above.
To display a list of all currently defined triggers for all trigger types, from the Automation Center navigation pane select Triggers > All Triggers. The All Triggers list displays.
To display a list of all currently defined and enabled triggers for all trigger types, from the Automation Center navigation pane select Triggers > Active Triggers. The Active Triggers list displays.
The All Triggers list and the Active Triggers list display the same columns of information about triggers. |
The following table provides a description of the default columns that display on the All Triggers and Active Triggers lists.
For information about customizing this list, including filtering, sorting, searching, and other list features, see Record Lists.
Column | Description |
|---|---|
Name | |
Type | |
Description | |
| |
Enabled | |
Updated By | User that triggered or last updated this trigger. |
Updated | Date and time this trigger was triggered or last updated. |
If you select Triggers > <Trigger Type> from the Automation Center navigation pane, a triggers list for that selected trigger type displays.
For example:
The default columns that display on a <Trigger Type> Triggers list are specific to that type of trigger.
When you click the Details icon for a trigger in a Triggers List, the Trigger Details displays all currently defined information for that trigger.
For information on Details for a specific trigger type, click the appropriate link in Trigger Types, above.
For information on how to access additional details - such as Metadata and complete database Details - for triggers (or any type of record), see Records.
You can define two fields that will display in the General Information section of the trigger Details for every existing and new task and task instance.
To define a user-defined field:
The Custom Field 1 and Custom Field 2 built-in variables resolve to the current values of these user-defined fields. |
You can enter a URL in a user-defined field in any trigger Details. Format: http://, https://, and ftp:// are supported. For example: https://www.stonebranch.com.
An icon, which links to the URL resource, will automatically display next to the field. If you select that user-defined field as a column in the triggers list for that trigger type, the URL displays as a link in that column for that trigger. When you click the field icon or the URL link in the column, the URL resource will open in a new browser tab.
For Cron and Time triggers, the Controller handles the switch to and from Daylight Saving Time as described below.
How the time change is handled differs between interval-based times (such as "every 15 minutes") and absolute times (such as "2:30 a.m.").
For interval-based time Cron and Time triggers, the behavior is the same.
An interval-based time Cron or Time trigger defined to run at a time that is being skipped due to the time change will also be "skipped," as shown in the following example; the time zone is Eastern (EST) and the time changes from 2 a.m. EST to 3 a.m. on March 12. In this case, the 15 minute interval trigger will run at the following times:
|
A Time or Cron trigger defined to run at a time that is being repeated due to the time change will also be repeated, as shown in the following example; the time zone is Eastern (EST) and the time changes from 2 a.m. EST to 1 a.m. on November 5. In this case, the 15 minute interval trigger will run at the following times:
|
For absolute time Cron and Time triggers, the behavior is different.
The behavior of the Cron trigger follows the standard Cron behavior as described in the man page for Cron.
Each line has five time and date fields, followed by a user name if this is the system crontab file, followed by a command. Commands are executed by cron(8) when the minute, hour, and month of year fields match the current time, and at least one of the two day fields (day of month, or day of week) match the current time. This means that non-existent times, such as "missing hours" during daylight saving conversion, will never match, causing jobs scheduled during the "missing times" not to be run. Similarly, times that occur more than once (again, during daylight savings conversion) will cause matching jobs to be run twice.
A Cron trigger defined to run at a time that is being skipped due to the time change will also be skipped.
For example: A trigger is defined for every Sunday at 2:30 a.m. On March 12, 2017, the time changes from 2 a.m. EST to 3 a.m., so on March 12 the 2:30 a.m. run is skipped and runs the following Sunday at 2:30 a.m.
A Cron trigger defined to run at a time that is being repeated due to the time change will also be repeated.
For example: A trigger is defined for every Sunday at 1:30 a.m. On November 5, 2017, the time changes from 2 a.m. EDT to 1 a.m., so on November 5 the 1:30 a.m. run is repeated, as shown below:
|
A Time trigger defined to run at a time that is being skipped due to the time change will run as though the time did not change; however, the recorded run time will be one hour later.
For example: A trigger is defined for every Sunday at 2:30 a.m. On March 12, 2017, the time changes from 2 a.m. EST to 3 a.m. EST, so on March 12 the 2:30 a.m. run fires at 3:30. The following Sunday, and henceforth, it runs at 2:30 a.m., as shown below:
|
A Time trigger defined to run at a time that is being repeated due to the time change will not be repeated.
For example: A trigger is defined for every Sunday at 1:30 a.m. On November 5, 2017, the time changes from 2 a.m. EDT to 1 a.m. EST, so on November 5 the 1:30 a.m. run fires once, as shown below:
|
The following pages provide additional information for triggers: