General Information for PRIORITY

Priority helps determine the order in which jobs in the Active Jobs file are processed by Control-M.

Priority is determined in ascending order where: blank < A < Z < 0 < 9 < *

In general, the job with the highest priority code executes first if all its other runtime scheduling requirements are satisfied.

When not all runtime requirements for a high priority job are satisfied, for example, where a job requires two tape drives but only one is available, a job with a lower priority whose other runtime requirements are satisfied may be run earlier.

This, however, is not always desirable. A job may be so important that lower priority jobs must not be submitted until the important job has executed.

Such a job is called a critical path job. Critical path priority can be indicated by prefixing the priority with an asterisk (*).

A priority prefixed by an asterisk, such as priority *5, indicates that Control-M must submit the job before submitting any regular (non-*) priority jobs, such as priority 10, and before submitting any critical path jobs of lower priority, such as priority *3, even if the resources required for those other jobs are available.

Critical path priority is applied only after all the IN conditions for the job exist.

Note:

• Critical path priority applies to contention for Quantitative resources and for Control resources required in exclusive state. Critical path priority does not apply to contention for Control resources required in shared state.
• The jobs in a SMART Table may pass Run Time criteria (and become Eligible for Run) only after the corresponding SMART Table entity passes Run Time criteria (so that its status is Active). Therefore, it is recommended that the Priority of a SMART Table Entity not be lower than the Priority of any job that belongs to the SMART Table. Otherwise, a higher-priority entity might depend on a lower-priority entity, and this might result in an unexpected order of job submission or job execution.