Sorting "Next run" column "After job"

[Erhardt]

Hello,

sorting by "Next run" when you schedule the jobs "After this job", didn't sort the column correct.
I think it should sort "after the next outstanding job", shouldn't it?

See the screenshot below.

[Shestakov]

Hello Erhardt,
I believe it sorts jobs with the next logic: with predefined time first (closest upper), then scheduled "after this job"(because you don`t know exact time the job will be finished) in alphabetical order from A to Z.
Looks like your sorting works fine.
Do you want VBR to "read" the whole chain of jobs?
Thanks!

[Erhardt]

Hello Shestakov,

yes, of course you are right.
But when i sort by "next run", the jobs shouldn't be sorted in alphabetical order from A to Z.
It would be better to sort the jobs with the lowest predefined time first (closest upper), then the "after this job" jobs (if existing), then the next predefined time second, and its "after this job" jobs (if existing).

I know, that we don't know the exact time, when a "after this job" job will start or will be finished. But i think it is easier to understand than the current sorting.

Greets

[Shestakov]

It would be better to sort the jobs with the lowest predefined time first (closest upper), then the "after this job" jobs (if existing), then the next predefined time second, and its "after this job" jobs (if existing).

Although it would give more understanding about the "job chaining", it can also give erroneous information about the actual order. Imagine if you set 2 jobs to run at 1pm and 2 more jobs to run after each job (6 jobs overall), You will see something like:

Code: Select all

Job name       Next run 
Job 1          1pm
Job 3          After Job 1
Job 4          After Job 3
Job 2          1pm
Job 5          After Job 2
Job 6          After Job 5

In my opinion, current logic makes a bit more sense. Ideally would be to understand order of the jobs in chain. Do you agree?

Thanks!

[Erhardt]

Yes i agree.

It would be ideal to have a feature to understand the order of jobs in chain.
Maybe with Colors? (But some customers would need a lot of different colors ^^)
Perhaps with an additional column? (And a Group ID / Job ID to sort)
And what if more than one job depending on a chain? Both won't work well.

Any ideas how to solve this problem?

Greets

[Shestakov]

You are right, colors will not work if you have several jobs depending from one.
However, something tree-like can work, but we need to go through all possible scenarios and think how it would look first.
Thanks for the feedback!

[veremin]

On a side note - I'm wondering what's the reason of using such a complex job schedule. Isn't it related to proper distribution of available resources, etc.?

[Gostev]

Since we explicitly recommend against using job chaining, I doubt it makes sense for us to spend development resources on enhancing its usage experience... agree with Vladimir, let's first understand why are you using job chaining in the first place.