Timer

Timer is a process starter activity that starts the process at a specific time. You can also specify the processes to be started periodically.

General

The General tab has the following fields.

Field Literal Value/Module Property/Process Property Description
Name None The name to be displayed as the label for the activity in the process.
Start Time Yes

The day and time to start the process. To run the process periodically, the start time indicates the first time to run the process.

The local machine’s time zone is used to determine the process start. If the project is running on machines in different time zones, the time zone of the machine where the project was saved, is used. Use a process property in this field to provide start times relative to the time zone where the project is deployed. If you provide a process property for this field, the format of the specified time must be: yyyy MMM dd HH:mm:ss z

Run Once None Indicates this process should be run only once on the day and time indicated by the Start Time field.

If you do not select this check box, the Time Interval and Interval Unit fields are displayed that you can use to specify the frequency of the process.

Time Interval Yes The integer indicating the number of units specified in the Interval Unit field. For example, if a value of 1 is specified and the Interval Unit field is specified as Hour, a new process is started every hour beginning at the time specified in the Start Time field.
  • If a value of 2 is specified and the Interval Unit field is specified as Month, a process is started every other month, beginning at the time specified in the Start Time field.
  • If the value specified is less than one second (1000 milliseconds), the timer ignores the specified interval and is triggered once every second.
Note: Using Literal Value, Module Property, and Process Property in this field, specifies the time interval in milliseconds and the Interval Unit field is not displayed.
Interval Unit None The unit of time to use with the Time Interval field to determine how often to start a new process. The units can be: Millisecond, Second, Minute, Hour, Day, Week, Month, and Year.
End After None Specify the number of occurrences or the end time here. Select from the following available options:
  • Never: Click the Never radio button if you want to continuously execute the process instance. For example, if the Time Interval value specified is 5 and the Interval Unit specified is Second, the process instance executes every 5 seconds.
  • Occurrences: Clicking the Occurrences radio button displays the Occurrences field. Specify the number of occurrences of the process instance execution. This field can be configured with Literal Value, Module Property, and Process Property.
  • End Time: Clicking the End Time radio button displays the End Time field. Specify the end time and date when you want the process to end. This field can be configured with Literal Value, Module Property, and Process Property.

Description

Provide a short description of the activity.

Advanced

The Advanced tab has the following fields.

Field Description
Sequencing Key This field contains an XPath expression that specifies which processes should run in sequence. Process instances with sequencing keys evaluating to the same value, are executed sequentially in the sequence the process instance was created.
Custom Job Id This field contains an XPath expression that specifies a custom job ID for every job in the process instance.

Conversations

You can initiate the conversation here. Click the Add New Conversation button to initiate multiple conversations.

For more information about conversations, see the TIBCO ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks™ Application Development guide.

Output

The following is the output of the activity.

Output Item Description
TimerOutputSchema The time the process instance started.

The time is represented by several items in the output schema indicating:

  • Now
  • Hour
  • Minute
  • Second
  • Week
  • Month
  • Year
  • Date
  • Time
  • DayOfMonth

Each of these items uses the appropriate datatype.

Threading Policy Details

The following are the details about the Timer activity threading policy.

Activity Type Multi-Threaded? Default Thread Count Thread Count Configuration
ProcessStarter No 1 Not applicable.

The Timer process starter does not generate multiple events concurrently. You cannot alter the default thread count for this activity.