I have a process that sends files to a separate system in bulk and I want to spr

ryanh over 9 years ago

I have a process that sends files to a separate system in bulk and I want to spread the file sending out over time so as not to overload the receiving system (# of connections). I am using a timer when the user finishes their process to schedule the sending at a later time. I'm upgrading the logic to move the time from midnight (the day after the user finishes their work, based on business needs) to between 4-5:30am on that same day.
=rule!ART_GetDateTimeMidnightOfGivenDateAndNumDays(ri!dateTime,2) + 0.1667 + (0.06*rand())

Question: Is there a simple way to get a timer to run on increments less than 1 minute? Right now with 100 or so transactions occurring over the 90 minute window there is a chance the rand() function will allow a few to occur the same minute. I'd like the timer to work at say 4:35:23 and 4:35:47, so that they are less likely to step on each other.

Can the timer or clock in Appian work at the second level?...

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0 Chris over 9 years ago

I'm not sure if the timers realize milliseconds since we can't review anyhting less than seconds in the details - but the time/datetime functions accept millisecond inputs at least..

=milli(time(4,23,35,rand()*60))
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0 Stefan Helzle
A Score Level 3
over 9 years ago

Why not build something like a queue. Each upload job is a process. Another process "queue worker" uses a portal report to find the oldest of these jobs and sends a message to this process so that this is completing the upload. As the upload finished a message is returned and the "queue worker" triggers the next job. The queue worker could be started at a specific time and run until all jobs are done.

I have something similar running to ensure that messages to a process are received in order under any conditions.
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0 ryanh over 9 years ago

I'll have to give the seconds part a shot again, since my test outputs didn't show seconds I assumed the timer was ignoring them. I am contemplating a rewrite to work on a queue system as you suggested. This would be a better long term way to go. Short term I was hoping to use the existing timer solution and throw in a quick rand() function to spread the attempts out over 1-2 hours since this is happening in the middle of the night and isn't time critical. I have the rand() working in test now and it was a quick fix.
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0 rogerp63
Certified Senior Developer
over 9 years ago

In the Timer setup, enter a decimal within the expression editor. It will then read the time in fractions of a minute.
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0 nageswararaoa over 9 years ago

If you want to set the time at 10(hour):30(minutes):30(seconds),
you can give like this :=datetime(year(now()),month(now()),day(now()),10,30,30).
You need to set the above expression at "Delay until the date and time specified by this expression".
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