8.5

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 tasks, 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 outside of the process
scheduled times and to learn how to set the schedule, See " Process Properties" on page594.
Technical
If an error occurs during an initial input task, the On Error tab is never triggered. See "Using the On
Error tab" on page46.
Input tasks may either poll a specific location, or await for jobs to be sent to a specific PlanetPress Workflow
Service. It is not recommended to have two initial input tasks capturing the same input location, for the
following reasons:
l 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.
l 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).
l 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 processes 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 captures one
single file. It does this until there are no more files in the folder and will also capture any new file that were
added during the time it processed other files. Once no more files are found, it stops processing until it is
scheduled to run again.
This is an important consideration when scheduling a task, as the Folder Capture will keep capturing files
as long as new files are added, even if it means continuing to capture and process outside its scheduled