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Hello everyone,

 

We've been running v.15 for some time, and when we tested v.16, we found the RPA Central scheduler would not meet our needs.  Like others, we need more flexibility in when bots run, how often, on what days, day of the month, etc.  

 

Since v.16.0.11 with RPA Central v.1.3 has been released, can anyone definatively say that we have the ability to schedule similar to the Windows Task Scheduler in this version, before I go down the road of installing and testing again?  The release notes and the quick start guide for RPA Central are vague in this regard.

 

Thanks 

@jpatterson You can find the scheduling options here(https://help.nintex.com/en-us/rpa/Central/Jobs.htm?Highlight=schedule).


@jpatterson we are in the same boat as you. Therefore, we have decided to stay on version 15 and utilize our own developed Automation Orchestrator that not only offers better scheduling options but also 4 other types of triggers not currently available in RPA Central:





  • Email IMAP Trigger


  • Email Outlook Trigger


  • File Trigger


  • API Trigger




Also, among other things, the absence of a dashboard with sufficient run history and statistics is also a big reason.



As far as I can see on the roadmap for Nintex RPA, we won't see any new triggers or features in RPA Central until Q4 this year at the earliest - but maybe I am mistaken.


Hello @jpatterson,



 



Thank you for your feedback on the scheduler.  I agree, additional scheduler options would be helpful.  We are looking at adding more.  Please share your specific scheduler needs so we can take them into consideration.



 



In the meantime, are you aware that you can attach multiple schedules to a job in RPA Central?  You are not limited to a single schedule.  Combining multiple schedules may give you more options.



 



The Automation Orchestrator tool suggested by @mbalslow is not created by Nintex.  So we do not support or guarantee its functionality, security protocols, or future compatibility with official Nintex products.



 



Aaron Bultman



Nintex Director, Product


@mbalslow, thank you I'll check this out.



 



@Aaron_Bultman @leighburke , We've shared our needs with the support and development teams already.  They are quite similar to those @mbalslow mentioned in his posts before.  You can check out the history attached to support ticket 00305685.



 



In the meantime, options like staying on v15, automation orchestrator or using a botflow to trigger others (lots of if then statements in this option) are what we have to work with.



 



1. Schedule options - select days of week, day of month, etc. that is found in Windows Task Scheduler



2. Trigger options - just as @mbalslow stated, IMAP, Outlook, Exchange, File, API, Slack, Teams, etc.



3. Run history, similar to that available for MS SQL agent jobs.  Need to know what ran, when, results, errors, etc. along with a dashboard that shows statistics.



 



Thank you all for the replies.


@jpatterson you are welcome to write to us in case you have any issues or questions while testing our Orchestrator. The tool is open source and free of charge to use.



 



As Aaron mentions, our Orchestrator is not officially supported by Nintex and will likely not be compatible with the RPA Central version of the product (because it utilize the same the functionality like when running Foxtrot via batch files), which is obviously not ideal. But this is the approach we are taking and advising our clients to do for now until RPA Central at some point hopefully offers the functionality we need.


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