Using Calendars to Schedule Jobs: IOA Calendar Facility

Specification of scheduling criteria for jobs can be simplified by using calendars. A calendar is a defined schedule that can be applied to jobs, such as Mondays through Fridays in each week in each month.

Calendars are defined in the Calendar facility. Each calendar is assigned a unique name that can be specified in job scheduling definitions. A particular calendar (that is, schedule) need only be defined once.

Specifying the name of a calendar in job scheduling definitions causes that calendar to be used to schedule those jobs.

Three types of calendars can be defined:

• regular
• periodic
• rule-based

Regular Calendars

Regular calendars consist of scheduling dates or days of the week that can be defined according to monthly patterns.

For example

• WEEKDAYS – schedules jobs each Monday through Friday in each month.
• WEEKENDS – schedules jobs on every Saturday and Sunday in each month.
• QUARTERLY – schedules jobs on the last date in each quarter: March 31, June 30, September 30, December 31.

Regular calendars are especially useful when many jobs have the same schedule. Defining the schedule once in a calendar, and entering the calendar name in the job scheduling definition of the jobs with that schedule, makes it unnecessary to individually define that schedule in each job scheduling definition.

Periodic Calendars

Periodic calendars are especially useful when scheduling dates do not easily conform to fixed date or day of the week or month patterns.

For example

• PAYCAL – Calendar used for jobs that are scheduled every other Wednesday (such as payroll jobs). Scheduling occurs on the first, third, and (if there is one) fifth Wednesday of some months. Scheduling may occur on the second and fourth Wednesday of other months.

Rule-based Calendars (RBC)

Rule-based calendars schedule jobs, or exclude jobs from being scheduled, according to pre-defined rules and can be referred to from any job definition. RBCs identify the set of scheduling criteria defined in the SMART Table Entity or IOA Calendar Facility that can be used to schedule or exclude the job. This criteria can be applied to any given year.

The IOA Calendar facility is described in Online Facilities.