Add or edit activity details in Kiwi CatTools

This section provides an overview of the interface used to add and edit an activity.

Activity Tab

The Activity tab is where you define what sort of activity you are creating as well as its core details.

Type	The type of Activity you wish to set up.
Persistence	Toggles the lifetime of the activity. Activities can be permanent, run once and deactivated, or run once and deleted from activities.
Report file	The path to a text file detailing the run history of the activity.
Overwrite existing report file	Indicates the report file is overwritten each time the activity runs. Leaving the checkbox unselected means the report file is appended when the activity runs.
Client threads	The number of simultaneous activities for load balancing purposes. This can also be thought of as the maximum number of concurrent devices that CatTools talks to at any time. This setting is only valid for activities that use clients to go out and talk to devices. The more threads that are running, the faster CatTools completes the activity. The free edition of Kiwi CatTools limits the maximum number of threads to 1.
Retry failed devices	Retry running the activity against any devices that may have failed in the course of the activity. The activity pauses for an interval of `X` minutes between each attempted retry. During this time the activity is still classed as running / busy.
Attempts	The number of times a activity retry attempt is made against a failed device. Valid range is 1 to 10 attempts.
Interval	The number of minutes the activity pauses between each retry. Valid range is 1 to 60 minutes.
Consolidate error reporting	Specify how Level 1 errors are reported. This option is beneficial if the priority is whether an error occurred, not necessarily what the specific error is. For example, you are backing up three different devices and one of the devices rebooted and fails to connect on the first attempt. The device connection is successful on the second attempt, however your primary concern is determining that a backup of the device was obtained. You are not concerned about the initial failure since you know it was caused by a reboot. In this example, you want to have this option ticked. If do you want to see all errors that occurred on all retry attempts, then you should uncheck this option.

Time tab

The Time tab lets you set up the scheduling of the activity. You may select a Reoccurring schedule, or one that runs the activity at specific times.

Reoccurring	Opt to run your activity during a the pre-configured time. If you select `Now` the activity runs immediately upon saving. If you select `Never` the activity must be manually run from the activities pane.
Days of the week	The days of the week on which the activity runs.
Dates	Specific dates to start and end the running of an activity. For example, your team is completing the setup of 10 new devices on January 15 of this year. You want to backup the configuration of all 10 devices, at one time, the following day. To do so, you can schedule CatTools to automatically run the backup configuration activity on January 16. The activity runs only on that specific date and does not run again unless manually activated.
Custom schedule	Custom schedule dates and times can be added, removed, or re-ordered. Exercise care when using this option: If an activity does not start running after you have configured it, check that the current date on your system is not before the Start date you have set. If an activity stops running, check that the current date on your system is past the End date you have set.
Favorite schedules	You can set up Favorite schedules that can be applied to different activities. Once you have created a schedule you can save it using the Save As button, and re-use this schedule for multiple activities by Loading it as required.
Monthly	Two options for monthly scheduling: First day of the month Every first selected day of the month

For example, you need to setup the configuration backup activity to automatically run on the 1st of February.

Under Times, select Every 1st day of the Month for the reoccurance.
This specifies that the activity is only run on the first day of the month.
For Days of the week, select the checkbox next to each day of the week.
Since the date February 1 can fall on any day of the week, since the year is not specified, it is important that every day of the week is selected. If you do not select, for example, Sunday, and one year February 1 falls on a Sunday, the activity will not run.

Devices tab

From the Devices tab, you can associate your devices with the configured activity. Each device has a tick box to indicate which devices are currently associated with this activity.

There are a number of methods you can use to select devices:

Click on the check box for each device.
Double click on the row containing the device.
Select a number of devices using standard Windows list selection methods, and then right click to show a context menu. Selecting the Enable selected option checks all devices that are highlighted.
Use the Filter method to display a group of devices, such as all devices whose group contains "Head Office". When the selected devices are displayed, click the Select All button to check all the displayed devices.
The Select All Devices option allows all devices within the database (both current and future devices) to be added to this activity.

Note on Filter and Select All options:

Filter- Opens the "Database Filter" window, so you can filter the display of devices. The text entered in the Contains field is case sensitive. For more information, see Filter devices in the Kiwi CatTools database.
Show all- Disables any active filters and shows all devices in the database.

Email tab

The E-mail tab allows you to select notification alerts for the current activity.

There are two types of email notifications: errors and reports. By default, both email types are send to the recipient email address set in the general CatTools Setup.You can override this setting by selecting an Alternative e-mail address.

Error emails	Sent when a level 1 critical error is triggered at any point in the activity by any one of the devices the activity is being run against. To receive this notification, select "Email errors from this activity".
Report emails	Sent at the end of the activity and summarizes the results of the activity. An optional HTML formatted report can also be attached to the email, by checking the Attach additional report with sortable columns check box. To receive this notification, select "Email statistics / reports from this activity".

Options tab