Help/Systems Issues Another Update for Robot/SCHEDULE

April 24, 2007 Alex Woodie

Help/Systems last week rolled out an update to Robot/SCHEDULE version 10 that allows it to fully leverage the new capabilities in the latest release of Robot/NETWORK, its cross-product systems automation solution for organizations with multiple System i servers.

Robot/SCHEDULE is Help/Systems job scheduler for i5/OS and OS/400 systems. In late 2006, the company rolled out Robot/SCHEDULE 10.0, which introduced a new Java-based management console, called the Robot/SCHEDULE Explorer, which provided streamlined access to information about jobs and their schedules. Then, earlier this month, the company launched version 10 of Robot/NETWORK, which also brought a new Java-based Explorer interface.

While the version 10 releases of the two products worked together out of the box, a little extra work was required to squeeze all of the functionality out of the related enhancements and fully mesh the two products’ capabilities into the new Explorer interface. That appears to be the gist of the latest announcement out of Help/Systems headquarters in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.

With the new release of Robot/SCHEDULE 10, job schedules for any system in the network can be managed using the Robot/NETWORK’s new Explorer interface. It also allows users to receive statuses from other systems, and provide cross-system reactivity, Help/Systems says.

The vendor also touts a new Send To Wizard that walks the user through the process of setting up job schedules among multiple hosts and nodes. “The ability to manage jobs from the Product Master helps users standardize and control their network job schedule,” Help/Systems says.