Choosing when a channel runs

Run schedule settings

In Color Factory Settings, expand the relevant channel and select Input & Output Options. 

Open the Run Schedule tab.

The following dialog appears.

By default, once a channel has been activated it will process files in the input folder the moment they arrive. However, if you want to configure the channel to run at a specific time of day, to only run once and then deactivate, for example, you can do so here. 

Run Always – When selected, the channel is always active and processes any files in the input folder as soon as they arrive. For more information, see Run Always.

Run Once – When selected, the channel processes all files in the input folder, after which the channel is disabled. When using this feature, you have the option of not deleting the source file, which may be useful if, for instance, you want to duplicate an existing archive or convert all the files in your archive to another format whilst retaining the original files. To overwrite the original file, select Output file is the same as input file. This option is only available for folder input, it is not available for search input.

Run with interval - run every n:th second – Select a time interval in seconds at which Color Factory will scan the input folder and process any files present. Enter the number of seconds for the interval in the Delay field. Color Factory searches the input folder at the given interval.  This option is particularly useful when time is critical and the user is waiting for an immediate result. It can also be used when time is not critical at all, for example, for maintenance jobs.

Run at specified minute every hour – When selected, Color Factory runs the channel a certain number of minutes past every whole hour.

Run at specified hour every day – When selected, Color Factory runs the channel at a specified whole hour every day. Note: This setting relies on a correctly set system clock to operate properly.

Run at specified hour and day every week – Specify a day and time every week when the files in the channel should be processed.

Run at specified hour and day every month – You can select a monthly schedule for running the channel where you can choose a date and time. Note: If you set the date of processing to the 31st, there will be no processing in months with 30 or 28/29 days.

Run Always

Run Always behaves differently depending on whether you are using folder input or search input:

Folder input: This is meant to work with NTFS file systems, where the operating system will notify Color Factory of changes in the file system. Therefore, Color Factory does not use additional resources to constantly poll the file system looking for changes. If Run Always is enabled for channels that use non-NTFS volumes for their input folders, Color Factory will fall back to another mechanism that polls the file system regularly to look for new files. It will also produce a warning message in the log that hot folders could not be set up for the channel.

Search input: If you are using this option with search input (to search for new assets that meet metadata criteria based on an action in FotoWeb, for example, or to see if there are assets that meet a certain date/time criteria), the index/pool is checked for changes every 5 seconds. A search is performed when changes are found.