Scheduled Action Policy

The Scheduled Action policy is a plural policy that enables you to specify one or more actions to perform on workstations associated with the Workstation Policy Package based on the policies schedule. Because it is a plural policy, you can create as many Scheduled Action policies for each platform in the Workstation Policy Package as you need.

For example, if you needed all of your DNS/DHCP clients to refresh their IP configuration every day at 8:00 a.m., you could create a Scheduled Action policy that runs the IPCONFIG utility twice, once with the /release parameter and once with the /renew parameter. Then, you would set the policy schedule to run daily at 8:00 a.m.

You create a Scheduled Action policy by going to the package you desire and pressing the Add button on the policies tab. This will bring up a dialog box that lists the available plural policies. Schedule Action policy will be one of them. Enter a policy name and press OK to add the policy to the package.

From the Scheduled Action Policy window Actions tab, shown in Figure 9.12, you can configure the following for each action by clicking the Add or Properties button:

  • Name Full pathname to the application that will be executed on the workstation.

  • Working Directory The working directory the policy will use when applying the action.

  • Parameters Command-line parameters that are added to the command line when the action is executed.

  • Priority Specifies the priority assigned to this action when compared to the priority of the user's access to the workstation. You can specify a priority of Action Default, Above Normal, Normal, and Below Normal. Setting the priority to Above Normal helps ensure that the action is performed quickly on the workstation no matter what the user is doing. Setting the priority to Below Normal will impact the user on the workstation less. For example, you should take into account this priority balance when scheduling actions. You might want to create one Scheduled Action policy for high priority actions and one for low priority ones.

  • Termination Time Specifies the amount of time in minutes that the application can run on the workstation before the policy will force its termination. The default is 1 minute. This can be extremely useful in protecting users from experiencing too big of a performance hit by the scheduled action. It can also be useful when ensuring that all of the actions in the policy can run.

Figure 9.12. Scheduled Action Policy within a Workstation Policy Package.

graphics/09fig12.gif

You can also disable an individual action by selecting it and clicking the Disable button, as shown in Figure 9.12. This allows you to keep the action and its setting available for future use but not execute it the next time the policy schedule is reached.

The final setting you have on the Actions tab of the Scheduled actions policy is the Run Items in Order Listed option, shown in Figure 9.12. This option forces the actions to run one at a time in the order that they are listed in the Actions list. This can be extremely useful when you need to run a set of actions in a specific order. The Move Up and Move Down buttons allow you to change the order of the actions, if necessary.



Novell's ZENworks for Desktops 4. Administrator's Handbook
Novell ZENworks for Desktops 4 Administrators Handbook
ISBN: 0789729857
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 198
Authors: Brad Dayley

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