Question

What are the Schedules in UiPath Orchestrator and how different Queued Jobs scenarios can be handled using Schedules?

Answer 1

Hey @Renuka, Schedules enable you to execute jobs in a preplanned manner, at regular intervals on Robots. Input values for processes which support input and output parameters can be managed at this level as well. You can assign Robots to perform different schedules according to the following options:

1. All Robots - Schedules are executed by all the Robots in a specific environment.
2. Specific Robots - Schedules are executed by the Robots selected by the user.
3. Allocate dynamically - Define how many times a process is to be executed according to the given schedule. This option enables you to utilize your resources to their greatest extent. As soon as a Robot becomes Available, it executes the indicated process according to the provided schedule.

The Schedules page enables you to create new schedules. It also displays all previously created schedules, which can be further edited, enabled, or disabled. Following are some of the Queued Job Scenarios which can be handled by Schedules:

1. If you set multiple schedules on the same Robot and their execution time overlaps at least one time, the jobs are queued, in a pending state. The Robot executes the queued jobs in chronological order.
2. If the same process is scheduled on the same Robot multiple times and their execution time overlaps, only one process is queued, in a pending state.
3. If you want to execute a process multiple times on any Robots that are available, you have the possibility to do just that by using the Allocate Dynamically option on the Execute Target tab. The jobs are queued, in a pending state, in the corresponding environment and each time a Robot becomes available, the first job in line is executed. In this way no Robot is ever available while there are jobs pending. 
4. If two or more schedules are running the same process, each for a different number of times, at the next trigger, the maximum number of jobs between them is added to the environment workload; they do not cumulate.
5. If a schedule runs the same process multiple times, the related queued jobs are limited to the number of executions specified when you defined the schedule, on the Execute Target tab. They do not cumulate with each trigger of the schedule.