Creating Period Groups

Period groups are useful when you use a set of periods regularly in defining schedules. It also eases the maintenance of those schedules because you can make a change in the period group and have it automatically reflected in all the schedules that use it.

For example, you can create a period group for Holidays and use it in any schedule that is affected by holidays, such as a work schedule or a delivery schedule. If any holidays change or are added throughout the year, you only need to update the Holidays period group. All schedules that use the Holidays period group will get the updated list of holidays.

Period groups can be added to an inclusion or exclusion period. When used in the inclusion or exclusion period, a period group is in-schedule only if all of its periods are in-schedule. Otherwise, a period group is out-of-schedule.

When a period group is added to the list, the periods in the period group are listed indented below the period group name in the list. The period group in the inclusion or exclusion list cannot be derived but can be edited or deleted from list. Periods in a period group in the list cannot be added or be deleted.

On the Deployed Schedule section, click the Period Groups tab to display the current period groups.

Click the

Create new period group icon on the toolbar to create a new period group. Alternatively, click the period group name from the Period Group Tree to edit an existing period group.

A new period group is created with the default name "New-PeriodGroup". Double-click the default name of the period group to edit the name. This name must be unique within the Period Group list and cannot contain spaces.

Click the

Create new period item icon from the toolbar. A new period item is added to the Period Group Tree and the Period Group section of the schedules screen is enabled for editing the period item.

Set the schedule item of the first item in the period group. For example, you might set Whole Day; 1st Sun-Sat; 1 - 7; Jan to schedule every January 1.

Click the

Create new period item again to create the next schedule item. Continue until all scheduled items are created. For example, if you are creating a Holidays period group, the list may look like this:

Click the Apply button to save changes locally. At this point the period group definition is stored in browser cache on the current machine.

Click the

Deploy icon from the toolbar to deploy the period group updates to the current agent. When the period group is updated on the agent, it will take effect immediately.

To apply the period group to a schedule item, display the existing schedule items by clicking the Schedule Items tab. The Schedule Item Tree is displayed.

10.

Select a schedule item and click either Include Periods or Exclude Periods. Note that the

Refer to a period group icon is enabled on the toolbar.

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To include the period group in the existing schedule item, select Include Periods and click the

Refer to a period group icon on the toolbar.

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To exclude the period group, select Exclude Periods and click the

Refer to a period group icon on the toolbar. In this example, the period group Holidays is excluded from the WorkSchedule schedule item.

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Select the appropriate period group from the Refer Period Group dialog and click Apply.

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The period group is added to the existing schedule item in the Include Periods or Exclude Periods section. The scheduled items in the period group are indented under the period group name.

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Click the Apply button to save the changes locally. At this point the changes to the schedule definition are stored in browser cache on the current machine.

15.

Click the

Deploy icon on the toolbar to deploy the schedule updates to the current agent.