Navigation Pane

By default, the Navigation pane is located in the upper left-hand corner of AbatWebConsole. The Navigation pane is often referred to as the "tree". The Navigation pane is used to navigate the ActiveBatch namespace (i.e., traverse through the tree of objects).

 

 

The tree is where ActiveBatch objects are added, modified and deleted.  Whenever you modify or add an object to the tree, the object's property sheets are tabbed in the Main view. The property sheets describe the object. See Property Dialogs for more information. Each property sheet is associated with a category - for example "General" is a category, and all object types have a General property sheet (it contains basic information such as the object's Name, Label, etc.). The number and type of property sheets varies depending on the object type.

 

Note: In the above image, the objects named OnDemand, RuntimeQueue and RuntimeUserAccount serve a special purpose and are built-in to the product. The remaining objects were added by an ActiveBatch user.

 

The tree is also used to perform actions against a selected object using right-click menu options (e.g., trigger a job, or copy an object, or delete an object, etc.). The right-click menu that is displayed is always in context. For example, if an object is disabled, then a menu operation to enable is provided.

 

Note: The same right-click menu operations are available in the Actions tab, which is hidden by default.  To access the Actions tab, click on the UI's Collapse/Expand icon located in the upper right-hand corner of the UI. See the image below, where the Collapse/Expand icon is circled in red.

 

 

The ActiveBatch user interfaces, particularly AbatWebConsole, have been designed to support three (3) types of people who need to use ActiveBatch. Sometimes a single person may assume more than one role. Developers (sometimes referred to as job authors or job designers) are those individuals who create the various objects and workflows that make up an ActiveBatch implementation. Developers create plans and jobs that are expected to implement the business or system requirements that a company may have. Operators are those individuals who are expected to manage the ActiveBatch system and ensure that all plans and jobs operate with successful results. Administrators are those individuals who manage the components and services that make up an ActiveBatch system. By matching functional requirements to an individual’s role, ActiveBatch ensures that the right tools are made available to the right person. The Navigation pane satisfies those users who need to navigate the ActiveBatch namespace.

 

Navigation is the primary navigation used by ActiveBatch Developers and Operators, and typically to a lesser degree - Administrators. The Navigation tree contains all the various objects that have been created on a specific Job Scheduler. Each connected Job Scheduler has its own Navigation tree. This make sense since the actual objects may be different from one Job Scheduler to another.

 

The Job Scheduler object is the first named object in the tree (as depicted in the image above - which in this example is eng-featuretest). The Scheduler object's name depicted in the tree is the "Display Name" which is configurable using the Connection Manager (press F4 to launch the Connection Manager). The Scheduler object is automatically created by the system. New objects can be created at the root of the Job Scheduler (eng-featuretest), or in any Folder Object or Plan Object (the 3 ActiveBatch containers). The big difference between plans and folders is plans are triggered for execution while folders are not. As a best practice, it is recommended that you organize objects by creating folders, so as not to clutter the root of the Job Scheduler with all types of objects, making it difficult to find things. Plans are used to organize specific jobs that are (typically) somehow related and perhaps chained together to create a larger workflow. For example, assume JobA and JobB are both placed in PlanX. When PlanX is triggered for execution, JobA runs first and downloads a file using SFTP, and JobB runs next, processing the file. As implied, there are features you can configure to set the order in which jobs run.

 

To add a new object to any container, right-click on the desired container, select New, then pick an object type to add to the container.

 

By default, objects are arranged in alphabetical order by object type. If you would like the Navigation pane to be sorted strictly by display name and not grouped by object type, see Preferences > Display > Sort Tree Alphabetically. Since folders and plans store ActiveBatch objects, they are displayed using the familiar tree notation for expansion and collapse.

 

Next, there is a search textbox that allows you to search for an object in the tree. If you have more than one connection established, it will search all connected Job Schedulers.

 

 

The system returns a list of search matches that you can choose from. When you select an object from the search results, the system sets focus to that object in the Navigation pane. If the characters you have entered in the search textbox match any part of an object's full path, then it is returned in the search results list. In the example below, the user entered PlanA in the Search textbox, then pressed the Enter key. Some of the results returned are depicted in the image, which includes any object with PlanA in its fullpath.

 

 

Next, if you click on an individual Plan, Job or Execution Queue object in the Navigation pane, the Instances Pane will be activated. This pane is open by default, but if it is closed, you can open it via the Collapse/Expand icon in the top rightmost section of the UI (as depicted by the red arrow in the image below).

 

 

The Instances pane will display the common properties of any active or completed instances for the Plan, Job or Queue selected. Note that the Instances pane includes "state" filters (e.g. failed, success, executing, waiting queue, etc.) and "date/time" filters, so if you don't see the data you are expecting, please check the filters. In the example below, the user selected the PowerShell job in the Navigation pane. This automatically updated the Instances pane with PowerShell job instances. The date filter is set for Today.