question Custom Discovery Schedule with a Condition Script in ITOM forum

Custom Discovery Schedule with a Condition Script

Jim Coyne — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 14:11:57 GMT

The "Run" choices we have when setting up a Discovery Schedule are:

Daily
Weekly
Monthly
Periodically
Once
On Demand

We would have to create multiple schedules in order to run a Discovery every weekday or just weekends. Or do we?

It may not be obvious, but because the Discovery Schedule table is a subclass of the Scheduled Job table, we have access to the Conditional checkbox and Condition script fields. By adding those fields to the Discovery Schedule form, we can now use a script to decide when it should run. So for example, set the "Run" field to "Daily", check the "Conditional" field and add the following script to the "Condition" field to run a Discovery on weekends only:

(function() {
  //run on weekends only
  var day = new Date().getDay();
  return (day == 0 || day == 6);

})();

Skip Sundays:

(function() {
   //skip Sundays
   var day = new Date().getDay();
   return (day != 6);

})();

This script for Monday to Friday:

(function() {
  //run Monday to Friday
  var day = new Date().getDay();
  return (day != 0 && day != 6);

})();

This one for Monday, Wednesday and Fridays:

(function() {
  //run on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays
  var day = new Date().getDay();
  return (day == 1 || day == 3 || day == 5);

})();

So what happens is the Discovery Schedule will in fact "run" every day at the specified time, but if the condition fails, the job ends without actually kicking off a Discovery.

Re: Custom Discovery Schedule with a Condition Script

aleck_lin — Mon, 31 Mar 2014 22:13:32 GMT

Jim,

I promise to make every effort to make scheduling easier in the future. Nice workaround.

Re: Custom Discovery Schedule with a Condition Script

Jim Coyne — Mon, 31 Mar 2014 22:27:03 GMT

It would be nice to have the following additional "Run" options for all Scheduled Jobs:

Weekdays
Weekends
Last day of the month
Start of Calendar Quarter
End of Calendar Quarter
In this Schedule

The "In this Schedule" option would then allow us to select a custom Schedule record which would allow us to configure really custom run times.

Re: Custom Discovery Schedule with a Condition Script

KCallaghan — Tue, 08 Jul 2014 20:02:34 GMT

Excellent. I was looking for something just like this!

Re: Custom Discovery Schedule with a Condition Script

Malaya — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 20:12:10 GMT

Could you assist with script for quarterly report?

Re: Custom Discovery Schedule with a Condition Script

Jim Coyne — Wed, 08 Jun 2016 14:02:09 GMT

Sure. Set the "Run" field to "Monthly" and select the day you want it to run on (e.g. 1 for the first day of the month), check the "Conditional" checkbox and use the following script in the "Condition" field:

(function(){

       //run after each quarterly end date

       var month = new GlideDateTime().getMonthLocalTime();

       return (month == 1 || month == 4 || month == 7 || month == 10);

})();

That will then just run once a month and assumes calendar quarters. The report would then run on the first day of January, April, July and October, the day after the quarterly end dates. You might have to tweak for your own needs.

Re: Custom Discovery Schedule with a Condition Script

Malaya — Wed, 08 Jun 2016 14:35:39 GMT

Thanks Jim.

Re: Custom Discovery Schedule with a Condition Script

Jim Coyne — Wed, 08 Jun 2016 14:36:55 GMT

You are welcome.

Re: Custom Discovery Schedule with a Condition Script

markgood — Mon, 13 Mar 2017 16:38:35 GMT

Jim,

I want to create a schedule to run on the first Sunday of every quarter. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Re: Custom Discovery Schedule with a Condition Script

Jim Coyne — Tue, 14 Mar 2017 19:53:05 GMT

This should do the trick - set the "Run" field to "Weekly" and "Day" to "Sunday", check the "Conditional" checkbox and use the following script in the "Condition" field:

(function(){

   //run on the first Sunday of every quarter

   var gdt = new GlideDateTime();

   var month = gdt.getMonthLocalTime();

   var day = gdt.getDayOfMonthLocalTime();


   //returns true if the month is January, April, July or October AND the day is within the first week

   return (month == 1 || month == 4 || month == 7 || month == 10) && (day <= 7);

})();

Re: Custom Discovery Schedule with a Condition Script

markgood — Tue, 14 Mar 2017 20:34:03 GMT

Jim,

Thank you so much.

Re: Custom Discovery Schedule with a Condition Script

Jim Coyne — Tue, 14 Mar 2017 20:54:27 GMT

You are welcome. Do you mind marking the post as being "Helpful"? That helps members see responses that are of value. Thanks

Re: Custom Discovery Schedule with a Condition Script

HugoFirst — Tue, 14 Mar 2017 21:19:50 GMT

I second Jim's list of options and would like to add two more:

First Day of Week

First Day of Month.

That way I can easily run a report on the previous time period.

Re: Custom Discovery Schedule with a Condition Script

Jim Coyne — Tue, 14 Mar 2017 22:35:26 GMT

Not sure when they were added, but the following additional options are available in Fuji, Geneva, Helsinki and Istanbul now:

Weekdays
Weekends
Month Last Day
Calendar Quarter End
After Discovery

Nice to see 4 of the 6 suggestions were added, but I'm a little confused why they were only added for Discovery Schedules and not all Scheduled Jobs? Obviously "After Discovery" make sense just for Discovery, but the other options would have been useful for all jobs.

aleck.lin do you know the reason they were limited to Discovery only?

Re: Custom Discovery Schedule with a Condition Script

aleck_lin — Tue, 14 Mar 2017 23:43:52 GMT

Yah, that's a fair question. To truly solve the scheduling problem, there really needs to be another layer of scheduling capabilities built on top of sys_trigger and sysauto (by the way, I'm no longer in dev and this is my personal opinion). We solved the problem for Discovery because we introduced our own layer of complexity to work with those scheduled jobs. At the end of the day, I agree that this would be better solved on the platform side, but short of that, we at least made it possible for Discovery. We need folks like you to enter in enhancement requests to the platform team to make this possible.

Re: Custom Discovery Schedule with a Condition Script

markgood — Wed, 15 Mar 2017 12:51:55 GMT

Absolutely. Sorry for the oversight on my part.

Re: Custom Discovery Schedule with a Condition Script

Jim Coyne — Wed, 15 Mar 2017 14:54:48 GMT

No problem. Thanks!

Re: Custom Discovery Schedule with a Condition Script

Jim Coyne — Sat, 20 Oct 2018 13:03:12 GMT

Just setting this answer as correct as the actual thread was not meant as a question and it cannot be changed because it came from the original Community site.

Re: Custom Discovery Schedule with a Condition Script

Russell Park — Fri, 04 Jan 2019 18:00:15 GMT

Jim, I am trying to setup a scheduled job to create a requested item on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday. Can this be done in one scheduled job or would I have to create 2 separate scheduled jobs and use the conditional formatting? Can you provide some help on the conditional script I would need to use to accomplish this? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Russell

Re: Custom Discovery Schedule with a Condition Script

Jim Coyne — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 17:09:47 GMT

Try this condition script:

answer = (function(){
    //initialize
    var result = false;
    var tuesdays = [];
    var today = new Date().getDate();
    var day = new Date();
    var month = day.getMonth();

    //start on the first day of the month...
    day.setDate(1);

    //...and find the first Tuesday in the month
    while (day.getDay() !== 2) {
        day.setDate(day.getDate() + 1);
    }

    //get all the other Tuesdays in the month
    while (day.getMonth() === month) {
        tuesdays.push(day.getDate());
        day.setDate(day.getDate() + 7);
    }
 
    //is today the 2nd or 4th Tuesday? (array index starts at 0)
    if (today == tuesdays[1] || today == tuesdays[3]) {
        result = true;
    }
    return result;
})();