Summary

This article provides an experimental tool for importing scheduled tasks from the Windows Task Scheduler into adTempus

More Information

This is an experimental tool for importing scheduled tasks, implemented as an adTempus Console plugin. It has several limitations and has not been extensively tested to identify and resolve potential problems.

Note: Beginning with adTempus 5, this feature is built-in.

Requirements

This tool requires version 4.7 or later of adTempus.

Installation

  1. Download the extension here.
  2. After downloading, locate the ZIP file in Windows explorer.
  3. Right-click and select Properties.
  4. In the File Properties window, check the Unblock box and click OK. If you do not unblock the ZIP, the files extracted from it will be blocked and adTempus will not be able to load them.
  5. On the computer where you are running the adTempus Console, create the folder "C:\Program Files\Arcana Development\adTempus\4.0\Extensions\TaskSchedulerImport". You will need to create the "Extensions" folder if it does not already exist.
  6. Extract the files from the ZIP into this new folder.
  7. Restart the adTempus Console if it is running.

Limitations

The import has the following limitations:

  • Supports "Start a program" and "Send an e-mail" actions only.
  • Supports only "On a schedule" triggers
  • The "repeat task" setting does not have an exact equivalent in adTempus; you will get a warning to review the result if this settings cannot be accommodated in adTempus.
  • Conditions are not supported
  • For the "Stop task if it runs longer than" option, the import generates a step-level Response to terminate the task after the specified time elapses.
  • "If the task is not scheduled to run again, delete it after" is not supported
  • "If the task is already running" setting: "Stop the existing instance" is not supported
  •  All jobs are set to use "Hidden" interaction

The tool will give you a warning message for settings it can't handle.

Usage

  1. In the adTempus Console, make sure you have connected to and selected the adTempus server you want to import to.
  2. On the Tools menu, select Import from Windows Scheduled Tasks...
  3. In the Windows Scheduler Import window, select the computer you want to import tasks from, and enter credentials if necessary.
  4. Click Read Scheduled Tasks.
  5. If adTempus connects successfully to the source scheduler, you will be taken to the Import page to select the tasks to import.
  6. Select the tasks to import and click Import. After import completes, you will be taken to the Save page.
  7. Review error and warning messages produced by the import.
  8. Each job will have an Edit button next to it, which you can use to review the job before you save it. Note: If you click OK while reviewing a job, it will be saved immediately. Click Cancel if you don't want to save the job.
  9. Click Save Jobs to save the selected jobs.

adTempus will recreate the folder structure for jobs from the Windows Task Scheduler. Tasks that were not in a folder in the Task Scheduler will be saved in the root ("Jobs") group.