Background Tasks¶

Use Operations → Background Tasks in Host Administration to control recurring scheduling and maintenance for an application. You can enable or disable each task, adjust its run interval and timeout, and choose when repeated errors should temporarily pause it.

Host administrator access is required. Settings apply to the selected application and its domains across the agent farm. They are not personal preferences or settings for a single domain or node.

Choose the Right Control¶

For example, increasing Run Interval for Create work item deadline jobs can delay the handling of due deadlines; it does not extend those deadlines. Changing a cleanup task's interval changes when cleanup is checked, not which records qualify for deletion.

Configure a Task¶

1. Sign in to Host Administration and expand the application you want to manage.
2. Open Operations → Background Tasks.
3. Select Scheduled Tasks or Maintenance Tasks. Use the ? button beside a task for its description.
4. Set Enabled, Run Interval, and Timeout Period as needed. Select Automatic Pause on Errors if repeated failures should pause future runs. Expand the row to edit the error threshold and pause settings.
5. Select Save to apply the changes.
6. Reopen the application settings to confirm the saved values. After the next eligible run, check the application logs and the relevant outcome, such as a due reminder, a newly searchable item, or queued replication work. Use Background Jobs for tasks that create queued jobs.

Empty numeric and duration fields use the defaults shown as placeholders. Clearing a value restores that field's default; it does not mean zero. Checkboxes explicitly enable or disable their respective options.

Changes apply to subsequent runs without restarting the agent. Saving does not force an immediate run. A task that is already running can finish. Disabling a task does not cancel jobs it has already queued; manage those jobs separately in the Background Jobs Manager if intervention is needed.

Restore Defaults¶

Select Restore Defaults on a task row, then Save. This resets the whole row, including Enabled and Automatic Pause on Errors, rather than only clearing the duration fields. Other task rows are unaffected.

To undo a tuning change while retaining other custom values, restore the previous value in the affected field and save. Do not use Restore Defaults when the row has other overrides you need to preserve.

Settings Reference¶

Duration Format and Scheduling¶

Enter durations as hours:minutes:seconds, with an optional days. prefix:

Run Interval is a minimum additional wait, not a fixed appointment or a guarantee of execution at that frequency. The normal processing cycle, workload, and service availability also affect when a task runs. If a task still has pending work, it can continue processing that work before the extra wait begins. Zero does not disable the task or make it run continuously without regard to the normal cycle.

Automatic Pause on Errors¶

The failure percentage is evaluated only after Minimum Runs Before Evaluation is reached within Error Tracking Window. For example, with a 50% threshold and a minimum of three runs, two failures among three runs in the window reach the threshold; one failure among three does not. Runs outside the window do not count.

After Pause After Errors, Emakin permits a trial run. A successful trial allows normal operation to resume; another failure causes another pause. Timeout failures can contribute to an error pause. Cancellation during agent shutdown does not count as a task failure.

Saving unrelated application settings does not clear an existing error pause when the task's settings are unchanged. Restore Defaults restores configuration values; it is not a command to run the task immediately.

Choose pause durations according to the cost of delay. Deadline and reminder tasks have shorter default pauses than routine cleanup. If maintenance scripts perform time-sensitive business operations, review the default one-day pause for Maintenance Script Queue before relying on it.

Task Catalog and Defaults¶

The names below match the English task labels in the panel. All tasks use a one-hour timeout, a 50% failure threshold, a minimum of three runs, and automatic pause on errors by default. The tables show the remaining timing defaults. Zero in the interval column means no extra wait. Check the panel's placeholders for the defaults in your installation.

Scheduled Tasks¶

These tasks check for due work or synchronize application data. Enabling them does not replace the schedules, calendars, or service configuration for the corresponding feature.

Maintenance Tasks¶

These tasks maintain search, replication, usage accounting, and stored records. A task appearing here does not mean its feature has been configured; for example, file replication still requires repository replication settings.

XML Database, Relational Replication, and Search¶

Enable the three XML database tasks explicitly only when your installation uses XML database replication. Review both the data-copy tasks and the XML cleanup task so that copied data can be maintained when source records are deleted. Restoring defaults disables these three tasks again.

Replicate workflow data is separate: it maintains relational data through replication mappings and is enabled by default. It does not enable XML database replication.

Full-text indexing and Full text optimization are also separate. If new or updated items are missing from search, check the appropriate case, document, or instance indexing task and its queued jobs. Enabling optimization alone does not schedule missing indexing work.

Upgrade Checklist¶

For installations upgrading from configuration that used the following controls:

Record any intentional exclusions from the previous deployment and reproduce the required enabled/disabled choices in Host Administration. Review the one-hour task timeout and automatic error-pause defaults, particularly for long-running maintenance and time-sensitive scripts. Save the selected application's settings and verify the affected operations after upgrading. Do not rely on the removed controls to preserve a previous exclusion.

Troubleshooting¶

Related Pages¶

• Workers
• Host Administration
• Node Configuration
• Background Jobs