Timer Initiator

The timer initiator allows you to build a handler that runs at a time interval that you configure. You can configure the Timer initiator to start an instance of a handler every day, hour, minute or second.

Note: Timer initiated handlers will run on primary and backup servers.

Note: Timer initiated handlers will only run if published as a Primary handler and will not run if published as a Monitor handler.

Timer Page

IP Start Time

The Reference Time is the time around which the Run Every setting is based. The Reference Time is based on a twenty-four hour clock (midnight is 0 hours, 0 minutes, and 0 seconds).

For example, if you set the Reference Time to 1 hour and 13 minutes (01:13:00), and set the Run Every time to 30 minutes, then the handler will run every thirty minutes before and after the reference time. In this example, the handler would run at 00:13:00, 00:43:00, 01:13:00, 01:43:00, and so on). In all, the handler would run 48 times over the course of a day at thirty-minute intervals.

Check the Start Time is UTC Time checkbox if you want the time options to be calculated in Universal Coordinated Time.

Note: in order for a specific reference date to be selected (see below), the Start Time is UTC Time checkbox must be checked.

IP Reference Date

This can be used to have the timer only run on specific dates and/or days of the week. The default setting is "Handler Load," which means that the start time and time interval will be measured from the time the handler was first published. If this is not desired, you have the option of specifying a particular date, or choosing a day of the week as the reference date.

Setting a specific reference date tells IP to begin calculating the time as though the handler began running on that day or date.

Run Every

This is the interval at which the timer initiator runs. Set the days to 1, and it runs every day. Set the days to 2, and it runs every other day. See the example above for information on how this setting interacts with the Reference Time setting.

If you want a handler to run on the first of every month or year, or on a specific day of the month, you can use a DateTimeNow operation to assign the current date and time as the value of a variable. Then use a Condition step to determine whether the current day of month is equal to one. If it is not, the handler ends. Configure the Timer initiator for this handler to run every day, and you’ll have a handler that does something on a specific day of the month.

Show UTC Times

Check this box if you want the times to be shown in Universal Coordinated Time notation.

Exit Paths

Start

This step always exits through the start path.