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Input tasks
Input tasks are the starting point to any process and determine what file this process will being with.
Each process must begin with an Input task, and although a given process may have multiple Input
tasks, no task can have more than one initial Input task.
Initial Input tasks
Initial Input tasks are always at the beginning of a process and are always triggered when the process
starts. The process itself may start on a schedule or poll at regular intervals, which means the initial
Input task only runs whenever the process is set to run. For more information about what happens out-
side of the process scheduled times and to learn how to set the schedule, see "Process properties" on
page724.
Note: If an error occurs during an initial Input task, the On Error tab is never triggered. See
"Using the On Error tab" on page83.
Input tasks may either poll a specific location, or wait for jobs to be sent to a specific PlanetPress Work-
flow Service. It is not recommended to have two Initial Input tasks capturing the same input location, for
the following reasons:
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It is a "hit and miss" to know which of the two tasks will pick up the file. This is an issue if the two
processes are different.
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One of the processes may process a file quicker than another and finish first, which may be an
issue if the processing relies on FIFO (First In, First Out).
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One process may error out as it's trying to capture an input that's currently being read by another
one. This causes issues if the process is on a schedule and only runs once per period.
It is important to note that Initial Input tasks process files one at a time, and will return to the Input task
once the current file has finished processing. Each time it returns to the Input task, it again only cap-
tures one single file. It does this until there are no more files in the folder and will also capture any new
file that was added during the time it processed other files. Once no more files are found, it stops pro-
cessing until it is scheduled to run again.
This is an important consideration when scheduling a task, as the Folder Capture task will keep cap-
turing files as long as new files are added, even if it means continuing to capture and process outside
its scheduled time. It is also important that while the Folder Capture input task is processing files it
keeps a copy of each file in a temporary folder, and will not delete any of these files until it has finished
processing all of them. This may cause issues with running out of disk space.
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