ProMonitor Administration Guide
3 ProPortal Worker Service
The Worker Service is a Windows Service that is usually installed on the Database server, though can be installed on any server that can connect to the database server.
The ProPortal worker service is used for scheduling imports, see Scheduling Imports
The Worker Service performs various functions that are part of the system:
• Processing of the Tasks Queue
Technical details and configuration settings:
The Task Queue
All the tasks, whether scheduled or triggered by a user’s actions from within the application, are executed on the server by the Worker Service. In order to execute a Task, a record is added to the Task Queue. The Worker Service periodically reads the task records from the Task Queue that need to be executed.
Tasks are generally processed in order of the Due Date although Tasks can also have a priority set. A Task with High Priority will jump to the top of the queue; similarly tasks of low priority will give way to other tasks.
Tasks can be added to the queue with a Due Date that is in the future, these tasks will not be executed until on or after the due date.
If the Worker Service is stopped while there are still pending Tasks on the Queue, these Tasks will be executed when the Service starts up again. (Unless a user manually deletes them from the queue from the Task Builder screen)
By default tasks on the queue are executed sequentially (one after the other).
A task is made of up of one or more steps. The individual steps are always executed sequentially.
Some Action types are defined as having to be run on their own while no other tasks are running (For example re-index database and backup database). When one of these tasks is added to the queue, the Worker Service will ensure that Tasks containing these actions are run in isolation while no other tasks are running (effectively stopping the queue until the isolated tasks have completed).
NOTE: You can pause the processing of the Task Queue by ticking the “Pause Task Service” tick box on the Task Builder screen.
Scheduling
The scheduler adds tasks to the Queue based on the Schedule configured for the Task in the task Builder.
When the Worker Service is started, only Tasks that should be scheduled after the start time of the Service will be processed. So for example if there were some tasks that were scheduled to
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ProMonitor Administration Guide run at 10:00 and then the Worker Service was stopped at 9:55 and started again at 10:05, the
Tasks from 10:00 will be missed. If this happens you can always manually add Scheduled
Tasks into the Task Queue from the Task Builder screen.
NOTE: Scheduling is not affected by the “Pause Task Service” tick box on the Task Builder screen, items will still be added to the Queue by the Scheduler but just won’t be processed while the Task Queue is Paused.
The Email Queue
The Worker Service sends messages added to the Email and queue. These messages can be added by users from within the Main Application or by the Execution of a Task.
When a Task executes a Message, it does not execute the Message immediately; instead, the
Task will add any Messages that need executing to the Appropriate Message Queue. The
Worker Service then will process the Messages from that queue.
Configuring the Worker Service
From the Admin Utility, a number of System Settings and System Values are available to configure the Worker Service to send emails or to perform tasks (e.g. automated imports). See the System Settings section within this admin guide for more details. The Worker Service
MUST be able to connect to the ProPortal SQL database on the SQL Server.
To configure this database connection, open the ProPortalWorkerService.dbconfig file installed alongside the Worker Service files using the CCCDBConfigEditor utility (from within Windows
File Explorer, right click the file and choose Open with…).
If a change is made to any of the System Settings or to the .dbconfig file, you must restart the
ProPortal Worker Service (from within Service Manager on the PC onto which the Worker
Service is installed)
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