TaskCentre - Dynamically Naming a File

My goal was to save a file using the current date; for example:

foo_MMDDYYYY.txt

In the Save As File object, set the Filename property as so:

Week16_{=Month(Date())}{=Day(Date())}{=Year(Date())}.txt

Here is a screeshot:

Troubleshooting TaskCentre

On occasion, TaskCentre will stop running or return cryptic errors like:

"Cannot run task “Monthly Mailer” because the server has no available slots"

"Monthly Mailer" is the name of one of my tasks - substitute the name of a task, etc.

The first thing to check to see if the service is running. If it is, try restarting it - many times it has been the fix.

Also, I recommend setting up a simple task in TaskCentre that sends you an email everyday. If it does not arrive you know something is up.

Resetting TRANS records

We are testing some G/L Integration; one of the challenges is once we run our Month-End Procedures they are no longer available for testing again.

One way to resolve this is simply to take a backup of the database before running the Month-End Procedures and restoring it if you want to try it again.

A short-cut method, which is working for us is to update the TRANS.Posted field like so:


/*
Testing G/L Integration
set the TRANS.Posted value to 2 to re-integrate or setup transaction for month-end procedures
when the month end procedures are run the value get changed to 4
*/
update
trans
set
posted = 2
where
year(transaction_date) = 2009

Creating a tab delimited file with TaskCentre

GOAL: On a monthly basis, create a membership roster containing the mailing address in a tab delimited format.

Task contains the following tools (screenshoot above):

1. Event, Schedule
2. Input, Database Query
3. Format, Format As Text
4. Output, Save As File

The technique that I wanted to share is how to insert the Tab character into a text document. After some trial and error I found that the following worked for me in the Detail section of the Format As Text object:

{=ThisStep.RecordSource("ID")}{=vbTab}{=ThisStep.RecordSource("prefix")}{=vbTab}...

Objective Internet Information

http://www.pff.org/digital-economy-fact-book/index.html

Testing PayFlow Pro Gateway v4 in iMIS

The new gateway is manditory September 1st, 2009

If your iMIS installation is greater than 15.0.3.2362 then you are all set.

On your testing server, update the Host URLs to:

pilot-payflowpro.verisign.com

http://www.vandamme.com/blog.aspx?id=2850&blogid=236

TaskCentre Triggers and SQL Views

It appears that you can create a trigger on a view within TaskCentre but this is not true. It does not work they way you might think or expect. There is an INSTEAD OF triggering action on SQL views that is better described here.

For TaskCentre purposes you will want to always base your task on a table INSERT or UPDATE. I spent a number of hours trying to figure out how to use a view with no success.

I am simply not satisfied with this. What about creating a view that updates a table periodically? I am off to try out the theory...