Many processes performed in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, such as creating invoices, mailing them or printing them, processing reports, and scheduling maintenance, can considerably affect the performance of a machine, or a server, preventing the users from working in priority tasks. These processes can be run as batch jobs and can be executed as a single job or simultaneously with other jobs, speeding the processes while running them as background activities, avoiding congesting the system.
The setup of the batch processing allows monitoring the jobs by creating alerts and permits to schedule recurrent tasks depending on its frequency. Batch jobs also allow verifying the history of previously run jobs and checking when and why a process was not successfully finished.
In this blog, I am going to briefly explain the creation, setup, and automation of regular tedious tasks as batch jobs, depending on the server requirements, control, and security requests to access.
1. Batch job setup
AOS configured as Batch servers might differ from each other or might be configured to execute specific batch tasks depending on its nature. Each batch group will classify the batch tasks to be run in the most appropriate server, thus, avoiding slowing down the machine. A batch job can be associated with more than one server to help to process.
Batch processing can also be configured to run during a certain period using the Active period for batch job configuration. For example, if a task must be executed each hour, and the active period for batch jobs is active from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., the hourly task will stop running at 5 p.m. and will start again at 8 a.m. from the next day.
2. Creation of new batch jobs in Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations
Each batch job is prompted using a class name related to each task in the job.
A new functionality in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations is the “Has conditions” option. The conditions are applicable for batch jobs, including more than one task, and allow to identify dependencies between them; such conditions indicate the second task cannot start if the first one has not ended with a specific status.
Each batch job should establish its recurrence, status, and alerts if applicable, thus ensuring its ongoing performance and tracking its results.
Also, some tasks can be run as batch jobs and be configured directly from the form.
3. Batch history control and monitoring
Control of the batch jobs can be done directly from the system administration workspace. The workspace displays the batch job information in a friendly way, segregated by status.
Each batch job executed will be stored into the batch job history, which should be cleaned out depending on its frequency to avoid interfering with the batch processing performance. The options Batch job history clean-up and Batch job history clean-up (custom) can determine the limit of days the batch jobs history will be held into the system, the batch jobs where this process will be executed, and even the status that will be applicable for the cleaning process. These tasks can also be scheduled as batch jobs.
4. Security roles requirements in Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations
The standard security role enabled to execute, copy, modify and configure the batch jobs is the Batch manager, though the Batch maintains security privilege permissions granted.
This role also enables the manager to determine who will execute the Batch by changing the “Run by” option.
To summarize, Batch Job processing in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations is a very useful functionality that allows running several tasks in the background allowing you to control its process thoroughly, from in which server the task must be run, to who is responsible for managing the batch jobs, thus ensuring team efficiency and avoiding congesting the systems.
Thank you for reading this blog! I hope you have gotten a sense of the Batch job processing into Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations and how to improve the maintenance and execution of regular tasks without interfering with the normal user performance.
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