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Author's profile photo Deepak G Deshpande

SAP Integration Suite – Advanced Scheduler Configuration

Introduction

SAP Cloud Integration version 5.45.**/6.37.**, one of the capabilities of SAP Integration Suite, comes with an enhancement for integration flow Timer flow step, where you can now configure complex and granular schedules. This blog describes how to use the advanced schedule configuration options in timer flow step.

SAP Cloud Integration version 5.45.**/6.37. ** software update is planned on mid/end of March 2023  (date and time subjected to change).

Timer Advanced option

The Timer flow step with version 1.2, you will now see an additional radio button with label Advanced.

 

It has been labelled as Advanced, as it provides you advanced capabilities in configuring your schedules. Below is the sample screenshot of same.

 

When a Timer flow step in integration flow editor is dragged-and-dropped, and Advanced radio button selected, by default, a recurring schedule of every 5 minutes would be selected as shown in the above image. You can change the configuration as per your requirements. As you can observe, the sections of this scheduling options reflects the Cron expression parts viz Seconds, Minutes, Hours, Days, Months and Years.

Let’s see some of the advanced scheduling examples and how to achieve them.

1. Scheduling at every hour from midnight to 6 AM, with an offset of 15 minutes, IST time zone.

To configure this, you need to select the options from Hours and select 0th and 6th dropdown entries, and select 15th minute from Minutes sections. Sample images below.

 

 

 

2. Schedule at 5th and 20th day at 8 AM, every month, CET Time Zone

To configure this, you need to select the options from Days dropdown and select 5th and 20th day, and 8th in the Hours section, and 0th minute, 0th second from respective dropdown entries from Minutes and Seconds section respectively. Sample image below.

 

3. Scheduling on some specific hours, e.g., every day at 10 AM and 3 PM CET Time zone

To configure this, you need to select the options from Hours dropdown and select 10th and 15th hour. Sample screenshot below.

 

4. Scheduling on the last day of month, at 6 am IST

To configure this, you need to select the last day of the month entry from Days section and select 6th hour from Hours section and 0th minute, 0th second from respective dropdown entries from Minutes and Seconds section respectively. Samples images below.

 

Scheduling%20on%20last%20day%20of%20the%20month

Scheduling on last day of the month

 

5. Scheduling on 1st and 3rd Monday, every month, 4 PM IST

This configuration is not possible with single timer flow step. You need to choose two timer flow steps and you need to model your scenario accordingly. And on 1st timer, you need to select the 1st Monday in Days option and on 2nd timer you need to select the 3rd Monday, and 16th hour in Hours section. Sample images below

 

Above%20schedules%20for%20first%20timer%20step

Above schedules for first timer step

 

 

Above%20schedules%20for%20second%20timer%20step

Above schedules for second timer step

 

A limitation in Externalized Parameters view

Currently, there is a limitation with respect to externalisation of advanced scheduler option. When you externalise this advanced scheduling option and look at the Externalized Parameters view, and click on Select button, you wont observe the Advanced radio button. This is currently a limitation. Below are the images with explains about the same.

Externalize%20the%20schedule%20by%20clicking%20on%20Externalize%20button

Externalize the schedule by clicking on Externalize button

Provide%20a%20key

Provide a key and click on OK button

Click%20on%20Externlized%20Parameter%20view%20and%20click%20on%20Select%20button

Click on Externlized Parameter view and click on Select button

Once you click on Select button, you will see only 3 radio buttons and Advanced radio button will be missing as shown in the image below, this is the current limitation

Advanced%20radio%20button%20is%20missing

Advanced radio button is missing

 

This is the limitation only in Externalized Parameters view.

Configure action works well as any other parameter configuration you generally handle for externalized parameters. Below are the sample images for configuration for the externalized advanced scheduler.

Click%20on%20Configure%20inside%20the%20integration%20flow%20editor

Click on Configure inside the integration flow editor

 

Click%20on%20Configure%20action%20in%20artifacts%20list%20view%20Action%20column

Click on Configure action in artifacts list view Action column

 

Configure%20advanced%20scheduler%20against%20the%20externalized%20key

Configure advanced scheduler against the externalized key

As shown in the above image, Configure action on advanced scheduler works as expected.

Note: Reuse of advanced scheduler externalized key.

We recommend not to reuse the externlized key in existing old timer flow step and/or in polling adapters like SFTP or Mail senders. This is due to the fact that, the old timer flow step and polling senders will not understand the advanced scheduler configuration, and if you re-use the advanced scheduler externalized key, you will see a validation error upon save of your integration flow.

 

Summary

As the timer flow step now provides more advanced options to schedule in newer version of the timer flow step in SAP Cloud Integration, you can fine tune your schedules in your integration scenarios. Fixing the above mentioned Externalized Parameters view limitation and options to (1) directly add Cron expression and (2) allowing multiple schedules in single timer flow step, are something we have in our roadmap and will be considered for future product roadmap.

 

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      Author's profile photo Morten Wittrock
      Morten Wittrock

      Really nice overview of the updated Timer, thanks Deepak!

      Author's profile photo Piotr Radzki
      Piotr Radzki

      Long awaited functionality - Thanks!

      Author's profile photo Souvik Sinha
      Souvik Sinha

      Thanks Deepak G Deshpande for sharing the details functionally of Advance timer. It's very nice development. Will wait for other 2 features as per the road map.

      Author's profile photo Marcel Porsch
      Marcel Porsch

      Looks nice, thanks for sharing!

      Also looking forwards to the two features still on the roadmap.

      Author's profile photo Sunny Kapoor
      Sunny Kapoor

      Thank you for sharing this Deepak G Deshpande

      It really adds a lot of power to the scheduler-based integration flows.

      Author's profile photo Naresh Dasika
      Naresh Dasika

      Much awaited feature. Looking forward to use it soon :).

      Author's profile photo Rutuja Swapnil Bandawar
      Rutuja Swapnil Bandawar

      Thank you Deepak for this detailed blog...Any Idea about how do we integrate third-party schedulers with the Iflow?

      Author's profile photo Jeswani Jitendra
      Jeswani Jitendra

      Great to have this feature out of the box. Before we were using groovy to achieve this.

      Having these features would also help us move one step towards "sustainable" execution of interfaces i.e. run the interfaces only when needed which leads to optimum allocation of runtime resources.

      Author's profile photo Kris Chau
      Kris Chau

      Thanks for sharing this! Many a times we had to copy i-flows to run on different scheduling modes. Looking forward for this enhancement.

      Author's profile photo Vivek Anand Vyveganathan
      Vivek Anand Vyveganathan

      Finally, been looking forward for this feature.. Thanks for sharing, much very in detailed blog for this new awaited feature.. 👍

      Author's profile photo Santhosh Saravanan
      Santhosh Saravanan

      Thanks for sharing the details. This is one of the much awaited feature.👍

      Author's profile photo Kai Or
      Kai Or

      Thanks Deepak,

      Much appreciated required functionality !

      Can't wait to try.

       

      Author's profile photo Federico Bellizia
      Federico Bellizia

      Thank you for developing this required feature 🙂

      Next step import this scheduling configuration from an API to centralized system where you can see all your Integration Flows schedule in same place.

      F.B.

      Author's profile photo Akhila A
      Akhila A

      Thanks for the blog Deepak G Deshpande  .I want to schedule an iflow to run only during the first 5 days of a month, starting on weekdays. I tried using the advanced option but couldnt do with the options available.

      Do we have to wait for multiple schedules in a single timer flow step ? Any idea when this will be enabled?

      Author's profile photo Federico Bellizia
      Federico Bellizia

      If you want to have multiple schedule in single iFlow just create more "Integration Process" with different Timerstart object with external configuration {{SCHEDULE_1}} {{SCHEDULE_2}}

       

       

       

      Author's profile photo Minh Tri Le
      Minh Tri Le

      Hi Deepak G Deshpande,

      Thanks for a good blog.

      Could you please show me how to set the timer for example run only weekdays (Mon - Fri) at 9AM?

      Regards,

      Tri

      Author's profile photo Deepak G Deshpande
      Deepak G Deshpande
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Tri,

      Below is the sample screenshot on scheduling example to run on weekdays (Mon-Fri) at 9 AM

      Mon-Fri%209AM

      Mon-Fri 9AM

       

       

      Thanks

      Deepak

      Author's profile photo Sai Kiran Badri
      Sai Kiran Badri

      Hi Deepak G Deshpande,

      Thanks for a good blog.

      Could you please guide me, how to set the timer for every 02.00 PM and 11.30 PM?

      Since it's a common requirement in every business scenario and hope it will be very helpful for others as well.

      Regards,

      Saikiran

      Author's profile photo Deepak G Deshpande
      Deepak G Deshpande
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Saikiran,

      Its been some time to respond here, meanwhile were you able to achieve this configuration?

       

      Thanks

      Deepak

       

      Author's profile photo Soumya Ranjan Pradhan
      Soumya Ranjan Pradhan

      Hi Deepak G Deshpande ,

      How to configure the scheduler - Interface needs to run every 30 mins starting from 7:15 AM or every 2 hrs starting from 8:30 AM??

      Can you please share a screenshot of the timer for the above configuration?

      Author's profile photo Deepak G Deshpande
      Deepak G Deshpande
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Soumya,

      Support to provide Start (and End) time is not yet available in the advanced scheduler configuration

       

      Thanks

      Deepak

      Author's profile photo Santhosh Saravanan
      Santhosh Saravanan

      Hi Deepak G Deshpande

      I have a client requirement to schedule the CPI timer based IFLOW for every 5th Working day of the Month. I can see there is option in the Advanced Scheduler to choose 5th day of the month. But our requirement is 5th day of the month should be Working day [e.g., Country is US]

      Do we have to go with Groovy Script?

      Can you please give your inputs on this.

       

      Regards,

      Santhosh Saravanan

       

      Author's profile photo Deepak G Deshpande
      Deepak G Deshpande
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Santhosh,

      Currently no out of the box support available for your need in advanced scheduler. You need to work around (e.g. by script) as per your scenario/business needs.

       

      Thanks

      Deepak

      Author's profile photo Sergio Tarrillo
      Sergio Tarrillo

      Hi Deepak,

      Thank you for sharing this, we have an Integration Flow calling Ariba APIs and the advanced timer is useful to avoid any rate limit issue, this is one of my configuration:

      Regards,

      ST

      Author's profile photo Shashank Mahajan
      Shashank Mahajan

      Hey Deepak,

      Thanks for sharing this. While the solution with the Advanced scheduler was indeed needed and has been helpful, the solution is still not holistic. The SFTP Sender Adapters for example still does not support Advanced Scheduler option. Is that on the road map? Can you suggest how the Advanced Scheduler can work hand in hand with the SFTP Sender Adapter?

      Author's profile photo Federico Bellizia
      Federico Bellizia

      I removed SFTP Sender from my life 🙂 No check if there is no file on source system. I switched all my processes to Pull Enriched instead.

      But it's a life choice not only technical decision, I want to have full control on the process not demand to external polling system.

       

      Author's profile photo Shashank Mahajan
      Shashank Mahajan

      Hi Federico Bellizia,

      Thanks for pitching in. So do you think I can use a Timer Step to make use of Advanced Timer and then add a Poll Enrich + SFTP Sender to get the files from SFTP?

      Do you also reckon that this way I'll also be able to check for the existence of the file in SFTP directory?

      Author's profile photo Federico Bellizia
      Federico Bellizia

      Yes, you check header CamelFileName after poll enrich step this step to understand if you find one file or not.

       

      Author's profile photo Shashank Mahajan
      Shashank Mahajan

      Thanks Federico Bellizia . I just tried this out and it worked like a charm. Instead of CamelFileName I used SAP_PollEnrichMessageFound property since it was documented in the SAP Help Docs and it works just fine.

      Author's profile photo Federico Bellizia
      Federico Bellizia

      SAP_PollEnrichMessageFound is better way! 🙂